The European Parliament passed a resolution anew on 17 February deploring the “deteriorating human rights situation under President Rodrigo Duterte” and called this time on EU Member States “to refrain from all exports of arms, surveillance technology and other equipment that can be used for internal repression” by the Duterte regime.
The EP resolution denounced the Duterte government’s practice of ‘red-tagging’ or labelling activists, journalists and critics as ‘communists’ and thus exposing them to potential harm and, in this regard, it called for the “abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in charge of carrying out red-tagging.” It also called on the European Commission to withdraw the GSP+ tariffs incentive arrangement for the Philippines, “if there is no substantial improvement and willingness to cooperate on the part of Philippine authorities.”
The Karapatan Alliance for Advancement of People’s Rights welcomed the resolution, citing the need for continuing solidarity of the European peoples with the Filipino people “in our quest for justice and accountability.” Cristina Palabay, Karapatan Secretary General, said such foreign support are “most needed” given “the dire lack of effective domestic mechanisms that can truly render justice for victims of human rights violations and as anti-democratic forces are poised to continue the fascist policies of the Duterte regime… through the 2022 elections.”
Palabay commended the MEPs who provided “relevant interventions during the plenary debates on the resolution, including MEPs Marie Arena, Miguel Urbán Crespo, Hannah Neumann, Svenja Hahn, Javi López, Seán Kelly, Jiří Pospíšil, Evin Incir, Soraya Rodriguez, Ryszard Czarnecki, Ernest Urtasun, and Heidi Hautala.
Karapatan has borne the brunt of the NTF-ELCAC’s ‘red-tagging’. At least 13 Karapatan officials and volunteers have been murdered since the start of the Duterte regime. The European Parliament resolution called for the “impartial, transparent, independent and meaningful investigations into all extrajudicial killings, including the cases of Jory Porquia, Randall Echanis and Zara Alvarez.” It also called for investigations into “alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, with a view to prosecuting the perpetrators.”
Addressing the upcoming May 2022 elections, the EP expressed regrets that “Philippine authorities have not invited the EU to conduct an election observation mission,” and called on the “EU Delegation and EU Member States’ representations to support sending an international electoral mission and give their full support to independent local election observers.”
Responding to the resolution, the Duterte government condemned the “misguided” European Parliament which raised what it called “discredited allegations of human rights violations” reported by “libelous journalists and bitter critics of the current administration.”
The European Parliament had issued similar resolutions on 15 September 2016, 16 March 2017, 19 April 2018 and 17 September 2020.