By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
The Dutch ambassador to the Philippines, Robert Vornis, is wrong in publicly declaring that the verdict of the Permanent People’s Tribunal in the case of the Filipino people against the Arroyo and its imperialist accomplices is “not serious” and that the Alston statement and the Melo commission report are “serious”. The PPT verdict is far more serious because it holds the Arroyo and Bush regimes, the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the multinational firms and banks culpable for the violation of civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights and the national sovereignty of the Filipino people.
By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
The Dutch ambassador to the Philippines, Robert Vornis, is wrong in publicly declaring that the verdict of the Permanent People’s Tribunal in the case of the Filipino people against the Arroyo and its imperialist accomplices is “not serious” and that the Alston statement and the Melo commission report are “serious”.
The PPT verdict is far more serious because it holds the Arroyo and Bush regimes, the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the multinational firms and banks culpable for the violation of civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights and the national sovereignty of the Filipino people.
The fundamental defect of the Alston statement and the Melo commission report is that they try in advance to insulate and absolve the de facto president Gloria M. Arroyo and her top generals, except the retired Major General Jovito Palparan, from the extrajudicial killings, abductions and other grave violations of human rights.
Also, the Alston statement and Melo commission report also fail to relate the violations of civil and political rights to the violations of economic, social and cultural rights and national sovereignty. In contrast, the PPT verdict exposes the root causes of the extrajudicial killings, abductions and other grave human rights violations.
Dutch ambassador Robert Vornis is one of the least qualified to make a judgment of the PPT verdict because he represents a government that is silent about the human rights violations in the Philippines.
The Dutch government is a close collaborator of the Manila government and US government in oppressing the Filipino people and persecuting progressive Filipino leaders like Prof. Jose Maria Sison under the Bush policy of global war of terror, plundering the Philippines under the policy of imperialist globalization and transgressing Philippine national sovereignty.
