Sen. Aquilino Q. Pimentel : Speeches :

---

REPORT

 

To            :   The Senate

 

From       :   Sen. Nene Pimentel

 

Subject  :   Attendance at the 118th IPU Assembly at Cape Town, South Africa

 

Date        :   April 21, 2008

 

 

The Senate sent a seven person senatorial delegation to the 118^th IPU Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa. It was composed of Senate President Manny Villar, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan, Sen. Pia Cayetano, Sen. Gregorio Honasan, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and I.

 

The House of Representatives also sent its 12-member delegation to the conference. It was composed of Rep. Jose de Venecia, Cynthia Villar, Kako Lacson, Boyeng Remulla, Antonio Cerilles, Eddie Gullas, Carlos Padilla, Mitos Magsaysay, Reylina Nicolas, Emylou Talino-Mendoza, Liza Maza and Teddy Casino.

 

Director-General Carmen Arceno of the Senate External Affairs office backstopped the delegation with Romeo Ortiz and Janet Reyes.

 

Senate Secretary Emma Reyes-Lirio and her deputy Edwin Bellen also attended the meetings of the Secretaries General of the member parliaments of the IPU.  

 

We left on different dates and arrived on different dates.

 

In my case, I left Manila on Friday, April 11, and arrived at Johannesburg on Saturday, April 12, with Kiko Pangilinan and Greg Honasan who boarded the same plane at the Hongkong stopover.

 

Well-meaning hosts

 

Some members of the host South African parliament met us at the Johannesburg international airport and assisted us in getting to our connecting (domestic) flight to Cape Town.

 

The locals apparently were not quite familiar with facilitating the transfer of the delegates from an international flight to a domestic one. It took us so long to get our luggage, load them to a waiting vehicle and board our plane.

 

Ticket, luggage lost

 

We found that things had gotten more complicated in that Greg and his companions could not take the plane to Cape Town with us. His ticket got lost and could not be accounted for among the tickets we had given to one of our facilitators. Some of our luggage also could not be found.

 

In fairness, Greg was issued a new ticket and he got to Cape Town on the next flight that very same afternoon with our ‘missing’ luggage.

 

Work begins

 

Various IPU committee sessions began on Sunday, April 13 and ended on Friday, April 18.

We attended the different sessions of the committees.

 

Welcoming Thailand back

 

On Sunday morning, I attended the ASEAN+3 meeting and got the delegates to adopt a resolution congratulating Thailand and welcoming the country back to the path of democracy. Singapore and other countries supported my resolution.

 

By itself, the resolution was not an earthshaking one. It was a simple expression of ASEAN+3 sentiment that, I said, verbalized our happiness that a sister country that had lost its democratic moorings for sometime had now found its way back into the ranks of freedom loving nations by freely electing a new parliament.

 

The fact, however, was that the motion was viewed with sympathetic sentiment by the delegates of ASEAN+3. The reason was that some years back Thailand was expelled from the IPU when the generals took over the country’s government. Hence, it was not surprising that the move was greeted with spontaneous applause and was approved unanimously in the democratic setting like the ASEAN+3 session.

 

The Thai delegates were so touched by the Resolution that the head of its delegation went over to where I was seated with the Senators Manny Villar, Kiko Pangilinan, Greg Honasan and Alan Peter Cayetano to thank us  profusely for the resolution. So did Jay Yoo of the South Korean parliament.

Twin highlights

           After getting the resolution passed, I joined the meeting of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians where I represent ASEAN+3 and the Asia Pacific Region. I spent the rest of the days of the IPU conference attending to the issues relating to the Human Rights of Parliamentarians the world over that were brought before the Committee. But before we discuss the details of our work in the Committee, let me put on record that there were two developments in the IPU conference that were significant as far as our country was concerned.  

These were the participation of Senate President Villar in the plenary debates on poverty reduction and the election of Sen. Pia Cayetano as president of the IPU Women Parliamentarians.

 

SP’s intervention

 

The Senate President, in his speech before the delegates in plenary session on April 14, asked the advanced countries to “help those that are perennially confronted with food shortage.”

 

Good governance

 

Adverting to the food problem plaguing the world today, he traced the food shortages, among other things, to mis-governance.

 

In his words, the Senate President said that “Good governance is essential in improving the quality of life of the people. Transparency and integrity in public service, a passion for results, a sense of urgency and compassion for those who have much less in life are the driving forces behind any successful anti-poverty campaign.”

 

Foreign debt

 

He also took a dig at the problem of the “huge external debts that show no direct and tangible benefits to the people.” He suggested that “moratorium, condonation or other similar financial arrangements” may enable countries (like the Philippines) to survive the burden of the huge external debt. 

 

Globalization

 

The Senate President also criticized the “negative effects of globalization on less developed countries. The playing field is not even. It favors those with solid financial bases, global production and distribution networks and modern technology.”

 

He ended his brief talk with a stirring quote from Nelson Mandela, the living hero of South Africa: “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right: the right to dignity and a decent life. And while poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”

 

Although the Senate President was careful not to directly denigrate the government of the Republic in a foreign forum like the IPU, those of us who come from the country easily noted that the “good governance” that the Senate President finds “essential in improving the quality of life of the people” is absent in the way the present administration runs the country.

 

And neither “transparency” nor “integrity in public service”, the “passion for results” or “a sense of urgency and compassion for those who have much less in life” that the Senator Villar considers to be the crucial factors to make any anti-poverty campaign a success characterizes the feeble efforts of the administration in that direction.

 

Hence, if we are to craft laws to address the problems posed by the rice shortage, the ill-effects of the huge foreign debt, the underside of globalization, it would probably help if, among other things, we hearkened to the thoughts expressed by the Senate President at the IPU.

 

Doing nation proud

 

Sen. Pia Cayetano did the nation proud when she was elected unanimously as the first Filipino (and the first Asian) president of the women parliamentarians of the IPU on April 17. (Picture of the turning over to Pia of the mantle of the Presidency of the Women Parliamentarians of the IPU by Monica Xavier of Uruguay, the incumbent President at the last page).

 

From reports of those who witnessed the proceedings that led to her election, Sen. Pia Cayetano impressed her colleagues not only with her knowledge of women, children and gender issues but also with the stand she had taken to address violence against women and children and the problems posed by and to our migrating  professionals, especially, women professionals.

 

Mitigation ills

           I understand that Pia decried the migration of many of our lady professionals, doctors, nurses, midwives, and teachers to other countries. To the extent, she said, that an ‘x’ number of our lady professionals leave the country, to that extent are our people deprived of their services.

 

I suppose that her candid presentation of the high mortality of women giving birth and of infants at birth in the Philippines, for example, boosted her standing with her peers.

 

Managing campaign

 

While Ms. Carmen Arceno did the yeoman work of contacting the voting women parliamentarians personally, all the members of the Philippine delegation also did their thing to make her win. They buttonholed any lady IPU delegate they met anywhere in Cape Town during the sessions of the IPU and asked her to vote for Pia.

 

Senate President Villar also tendered a dinner for Pia where the heads of delegations from many countries attended. I remember meeting the Speakers of the Parliaments of Indonesia, Singapore, China, Pakistan, India, and Australia and seeing sundry members of foreign delegations at the dinner.

 

Philippine Ambassador Virgilio Reyes who attended the dinner also showed solidarity with the campaign of Pia for the presidency of the women parliamentarians.

 

Work at CHRP

 

My work at the CHRP that started on Sunday, April 13, and ended on Friday, April 18, focused on the killings, ousters and other harassments of parliamentarians the world over. Some of the cases that had been previously brought before us but had not yet been closed. There were also new cases of oppression by governments of their own parliamentarians.

 

            Of direct relevance to the Philippines were the cases of Sen. Sonny Trillanes (about which all I can say at this point is that more documentation and testimony are needed by the Committee) and of Representatives Beltran, Ocampo, Casino and Maza relating to new or threatened acts of harassment against them by the Arroyo administration. The action taken by the CHRP is included below in the detailed narration of our committee work.

 

Cambodia & Indonesia submit

 

At our Monday meeting, the Committee chair intimated that it would be good if we could get direct responses from the delegations of Cambodia and Indonesia regarding the complaints of some of their parlimentarians.

 

The complaint against the Cambodian government was lodged by an MP who claimed that he was beaten up by the police for putting up opposition political posters.

 

The complaint against the Indonesian government was its alleged failure to compensate the family of a member of its parliament, who was reportedly killed by elements of the Indonesian armed forces in the wake of the uprising in Aceh some years ago.

 

Since the two countries are a part of the ASEAN, I contacted the delegation of Cambodia and Speaker Agung Laksono of Indonesia. I suggested that it would be good if they could come before the Committee and state the stand of their governments on the issues at hand.

           

Happily, both the Cambodian and Indonesian delegations readily agreed to appear before the Committee. The delegation of Cambodia representing the government side and the MP wife of the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, appeared separately to argue the case of the Cambodian MP  who was allegedly beaten by the police.

 

Indonesian Speaker Agung Laksono sent MP Toha to represent him.

 

Toha assured the Committee that the government of Indonesia and the government of Aceh would work things out to settle the complaint of the family of MP Daud.

 

Myanmar redoux

 

            The Myanmar issue was again brought to our committee’s attention.

 

            At the last IPU assembly in Geneva, I presented on behalf of the Committee, a power-point presentation detailing the atrocities the Myanmar regime had foisted upon the peoples of Burma. At the time, the Committee had not yet been formally presented with the complaint of the MPs of Myanmar regarding the uprising led by the Monks against the Myanmar regime on September 23, 2007.

 

            On Monday, Burma MPs in exile led by Teddy Buri and Bo Hla Tint appeared before the Committee and put on record the recent oppressions perpetrated by the Ruling Junta against the peoples of Burma and particularly against the elected members of the parliament of Burma.

 

            They told us of the need for the international community to speak out against the farcical referendum that the Ruling Junta is holding in May of this year to ratify a new constitution for Burma.

 

            In response, the CHRP denounced  the draft Constitution prepared by the Ruling Junta as farcical and asked for the release of all the Burmese opposition leaders and activists led by Aung San Syu Kyi.

 

            Other details of the situation of the Burmese parliamentarians in Burma are included in the summary of the CHRP work in this report.

 

Egyptian Challenge

 

One of the more interesting challenges to the Committee’s assuming jurisdiction over a case of a parliamentarian was raised by Egypt.

 

The government of Egypt was accused by a former member of the Egyptian parliament, Ayman Nour, of depriving him unlawfully of his mandate as a parliamentarian, of wrongfully imprisoning him and of mistreating him in prison. More to the point, implicit in his complaint was that he was jailed because he had dared to run against President Hosni Mubarak at the last presidential election in Egyp in which he was – to use more tactful terms – decively trounced .

           

We had heard the case in our previous CHRP meetings but had recommended only that an on-site mission be conducted so that the Committee Chair and a member, Philippe Mahoux, incidentally, a doctor of medicine, could go to Egypt and visit, among others, Ayman Nour in prison to check on the status of his health. 

 

Mission aborted

 

The mission was not undertaken because while the Egyptian delegation, headed by the Speaker Souror of the parliament of Egypt eagerly invited the CHRP mission to do the on-site visit to Egypt, he could not guarantee a meeting with Nour. He said that although he supported the on-site visit, the Attorney General who had control over the prison system of Egypt did not give permission for the visit to Nour.

 

Invited by the Committee to provide us with the rationale of the refusal in effect of the Egyptian government to allow the two-member subcommittee of the CHRP to visit Nour, Souror, a former president of IPU, told us that we were all welcome to visit Egypt but we may not visit Nour in prison even for the purpose alone of verifying his state of health. He said that it was their Attorney-General that ruled that the visit to Nour could not be done without violating the rules of Egypt’s justice department. For the committee to insist on visiting Nour would be tantamount to an infringement of the sovereignty of their country and to a violation of the respect that is due to an IPU member country.

 

Egyptian world contribution

 

When I was recognized by the Chair to ask questions of the Speaker, I paid tribute to the invaluable contributions of Egypt to world civilization and the beauty of its monuments and natural wonders. But if we accepted his gracious invitation to visit Egypt without being allowed to visit Nour in prison, it would defeat the very purpose of our visit. It would, I said, with much hyperbole, be like visiting Egypt without seeing the pyramids.

 

I added that as a lawyer like him, I fully understood his concerns that if we had our way, we might be infringing upon Egypt’s sovereignty.

 

After putting him at ease, I asked the Speaker if Egypt had adopted the International Convention on the Civil and Political Rights of Persons; the International Convention on the Human Rights of People; and the International Convention against Torture of prisoners.

 

Proudly, he said “Yes”.

 

That being the case, I said, the Committee’s visiting Ayman Nour may, therefore, not be considered as an undue invasion to the sovereignty of the Egypt.

 

I did not go into details because Souror and I knew that those international conventions once adopted by the signatory state become parts of “the law of the land”. 

 

In any event, the Committee decided to report the intransigence of Egyptian authorities to the IPU general assembly at our plenary session for proper action.

 

Word reached us during the day that the Egyptian delegation would take the floor to refute the recommendations of the Committee and ask for a vote. There was a threat to that move. And it was that Souror with his past connections as IPU president could embarrass the Committee if we persisted in reporting out the Egyptian stand for consideration by the IPU plenary.

 

At our meeting on Thursday, the day before the IPU plenary closing session, the Committee chair asked what the committee members views on the matter would be.

 

We all decided to support the committee report and simply state the facts of the Egyptian case as they were.

 

Tackling Egyptian bull

 

Thus, it came to pass that on Friday at about 3 on the afternoon, Chairman Sharon Carstairs reported the Ayman Nour case to the IPU plenary. The move was intended to take the Egyptian bull by the horns as it were but at the same time seek the support of the delegations at plenary for the work of the Committee.

 

As expected, Speaker Souror registered his reservations to the Committee report. He did not ask for a vote. What I understood of his move was that he merely wanted to put his reservations on record that Egyptian sovereignty was being trampled upon by the report.

 

Music

 

What happened was music to our ears.  Immediately after he spoke, several delegations spoke to support the Committee report.

 

UK delegate Ann Clwyd expressed the overwhelming sense of the delegates when she said for the record that Egypt’s refusal to allow a CHRP delegation to visit Nour in prison was a sign that “Egypt was hiding something.” She added that it would be best if Egypt reconsidered its reservations.

 

I also heard a Finnish delegate tell the Egyptian delegation that if there was a law that prevented a CHRP mission from visiting Nour, Egypt should “change the law.”

 

There were a number of statements in support of the report that sent the message to the Egyptian delegation that it was pointless for them to insist on their stand.

 

Quiet exit

 

The Egyption delegation did not make any rebuttal. They left the hall quietly and the impression that they were leaving not because they were walking out but because they had to catch a scheduled flight home. 

 

After the rather brief exchange of views in the Egyptian case, the rest of the report of the CHRP was accepted without debate by the plenary.

 

Summing up

 

            In all, we discussed the cases of --- parliamentarians whose human rights were abused in --- countries.

 

            In brief, these were the cases of: