Human Rights Committee - Philippine Center for Investigative ...

In its motion for reconsideration asking the Ombudsman to reconsider its
earlier order dismissing the suit against Arroyo and her top officials, the
Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice, a group of 26
human rights groups in the country, urged the Ombudsman anew to slap
graft charges against Arroyo and top police and Cabinet officials and order
them to stop the widespread abuse of children in prison.
“The President’s and the alter egos’ inaction, notwithstanding their own
actual and/or constructive knowledge of this serious affront to the children’s
fundamental dignity and human rights, as they actually know and/or are in a
position to know the egregious, wide scale, and continuing violations,
bespeaks of their own acquiescence to and giving of their tacit approval and
authority, for the continuing commission of such violations, under the cloak of
impunity, and contrary to the peremptory norm of international human rights
law prohibiting the jailing of children with adults,” the group stressed.
“In effect, the President and the public respondents effectively conspired and
are conspiring with the officers and members of the Philippine National
Police in committing this form of crimes against humanity,” the group
charged.
In seeking to charge Arroyo and top officials for violating the Anti-Graft and
Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019), the group said that mixing up children with
adults is “injurious to the human rights of children in conflict with the law.”
The practice, the group stated, goes “on a continuing basis.”
“This practice is going on right at this very minute and would continue to
emasculate the dignity and human rights of thousands of children in the days
to come.”
Earlier, the Ombudsman junked the class suit filed by five children prisoners,
aged 11 to 17, who were hauled off to police prisons packed with adult
inmates, on behalf of children mixed up with adult detainees nationwide,
asking that Arroyo, the secretaries of the Department of Justice and
Department of Interior and Local Governments, and the Philippine National
Police chief be charged for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act
(RA 3019) for causing undue injury to the complainants.
Class suit
In dismissing the complaint filed on December 10, 2003, the Ombudsman
said that the undue injury asserted by the children was merely “speculative.”
The Ombudsman also said that Arroyo and her top officials were unaware
and far removed from the violations.
The group feared that the dismissal of the complaint would lead to further
violations. “The Order further gives to the officers and members of the
Philippine National Police the green light in continuously perpetrating this
injustice, this form of crimes against humanity, and this act of torture, cruel,
inhumane, and degrading treatment and punishment that smacks of injurious
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