MANILA, 6 March 2006 — Sen. Jamby Madrigal yesterday said she has asked the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNCHR) to look into President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s alleged human rights abuses when she placed the country under a state of national emergency.

In a letter-complaint addressed to Abeyi Ligabo, special rapporteur on freedom of expression of the Geneva-based UNCHR, Madrigal said the “continuing, consistent, systematic, widespread violation of human rights” by the government escalated when Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017.

Arroyo’s emergency declaration on Feb. 24 was followed by a police crackdown on media and individuals perceived to be critical of her administration.

She lifted the emergency order last Friday but the police continue to hold in detention Rep. Crispin Beltran, a lawmaker who was arrested on Feb. 24 on the basis of a case filed by the government in 1985.

“Even if Mrs. Arroyo has lifted the state of emergency, it is of no consequence, since her policy towards repression and oppression of human rights remains,” Madrigal said her letter.

Beltran’s five fellow party-list members of the House of Representatives, all identified with the political Left, are holed up at the Batasan building of Congress in Quezon City, unable to come out because of a standing arrest warrant.

A number of individuals, including sociology professor and newspaper columnist Randy David and retired general Ramon Montaño, were also arrested without any warrant.

Madrigal told the UNCHR that the warrantless arrests as well as Arroyo’s “calibrated preemptive response” against public assemblies and alleged threats and intimidations against media are examples of Arroyo’s “disregard of human rights.”

“Our country is already in a state of martial law where the rule of law of no longer exists,” Madrigal said.

She said her complaint was consolidated with the first one she filed last year when riot police violently dispersed marchers on their way to Mendiola near Malacañang Palace.

Among those in the rally were three Catholic bishops, former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr., Madrigal and TV host Oscar Orbos, who were demanding Arroyo’s resignation for allegedly cheating in the 2004 presidential election.

Malacañang Palace said Madrigal’s complaint will not prosper.

Press Secretary Ignacio R. Bunye said Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 to forestall a plot by communist and military rebels to seize power from the government.

Bunye said there was also no violation in the case of media since no publication or broadcast station was padlocked or prevented from airing their reports during the “national emergency” period.

Last week, the government posted policemen at the Tribune after Arroyo declared a state of emergency. The policemen were withdrawn on Friday only after Arroyo lifted the state of emergency.

Sedition Charges

On Saturday, Sen. Edgardo Angara accused the government of “blatant abuse of the law and a direct assault on free speech” in filing charges of incitement to sedition against Niñez Cacho-Olivares, publisher of the Daily Tribune newspaper, and columnists Ike Seneres and Herman Tiu-Laurel.

“This flagrant misuse of the law to curtail press freedom should cease now,” he said.

Angara said “this direct assault on media” and the crackdown on independent-minded journalists “only take place in authoritarian regimes that seek to scuttle basic and indispensable rights.”

“Who will say that the emperor, or in this case the empress, has no clothes? Who will report on the evil and corruption and the drift to an authoritarian state?

“The wages of this crackdown on free speech and press freedom are too brutal and predictable: drop in investments and tourist arrivals and an unstable peace and order situation,” he said.

Broadcast Guidelines

The government has told broadcast networks to stop airing news items without identifying their sources. “News from ‘anonymous sources’ is not allowed,” the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said in a memorandum to members of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).

The memorandum, however, said “confidential” sources may be used when airing information deemed essential to the public interest.

“News sources must be clearly identified, except when granted confidentiality,” it said. “A station may broadcast information provided by confidential sources only if it is in the public interest to do so.”

The KBP had earlier issued a “strict injunction for broadcast stations not to allow their facilities to be used for advocating the overthrow of government by force of violence, and not to allow the broadcast of material which tend to propose or incite treason, rebellion, sedition, or pose a clear and present danger to the state.”

According to the KBP, before news from a confidential source could be aired, the station should first look for a source that could be identified or that could corroborate the information provided.

Journalists may interview suspects or fugitives from the law, as long as they did not “accompany” the latter “while they are planning a crime, traveling to a crime scene, or committing a crime,” it added.

The NTC also said public affairs programs and commentaries that are “designed primarily to malign, unfairly criticize or attack a person, natural or juridical, shall not be allowed.”

NTC Commissioner Ronald Solis said the guidelines were not a form of censorship but of self-regulation being imposed by the KBP as the umbrella organization of broadcast outfits in the country. (With input from INS)