TORTURE PREVENTION | UN anti-torture panel to visit the Philippines next week

December 1, 2023 , 08:11 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(December 1, 2023) – A United Nations’ (UN) torture prevention body will visit the Philippines on Sunday to assess the country’s progress in fulfilling its international commitments to stop torture and other cruel treatment, the head of the delegation has said.

The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) will make its second visit in the country from December 3 to 14, where the panel will look into the treatment of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in the country and advise the government about fulfilling its commitment to stop torture and ill-treatment, Victor Zaharia said.

“The Philippines is one of the States parties who are significantly overdue in establishing a national mechanism for torture prevention under the Optional Protocol, and we consider our visit as an opportunity to help the authorities set up the country’s independent monitory body,” Zaharia said in a statement on Thursday.

The Philippines is a signatory to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, having ratified the treaty in 2012.

But the country, along with 14 other state parties, have not yet implemented Article 17 of the protocol, the UN panel said. The article mandates the creation or designation of at least one independent national preventive mechanism for preventing torture within one year after entering into force.

The SPT delegation led by Zaharia will comprise Satyabhooshun Gupt Domah, Aisha Shujune Muhammad, Martin Zinkler, and will also be accompanied by two human rights officers from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The delegation is expected to carry out unannounced visits to detention facilities, conduct confidential interviews to PDLs to assess their condition, and meet with government officials to present its preliminary observations, the UN human rights office said.

The committee made its first visit to the Philippines in 2015, when the panel expressed alarm on the overcrowding of PDLs in the country’s prisons. The problem persists to this day – state auditors have said 67% of jails in the country were still congested as of last year.

According to tallies from human rights watchdog Karapatan, there have been 11 reports of torture since President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. took office in July 2022.

The Philippines was the first country in Southeast Asia to legislate a stand-alone law that criminalized physical and mental torture in 2009.

The Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), a non-government organization, however noted that there had only been one torture case taken to court by ten years after the law was passed. Many human rights defenders who advocated for torture survivors have also faced intimidation and risk of state reprisals.

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