Human Rights Violations

Since last week we've been hearing about statements like "from Manila Pen to National Pen", referring to the Trillanes group who staged a coup at the Manila Peninsula and ended up at the National Penitentiary after the bungled coup. There is also news about the journalists being gagged (again) for showing us, blow by blow, what happened at the Pen. The rebel soldiers are angry at the violations made by this incumbent government. The incumbent government wants to punish the journalist violators and the rebel soldiers. Sino ba ang violator?

Check this statistics which I got from a Sociology book - sorry I forgot the name of the author. But he cited a time (?)study on human rights violations and its perpetrators. Read below:

Sectoral Participation in Public Information Activities (1988-2000):
No. of participants
Government officials, employees - 99,282
Rebel returnees, prisoners - 11,379
Students, teachers, youth, school heads - 166,165
Military/ police - 165,018
Barrio residents, officials - 9,985
Religious sector - 1,409
Media - 1,307
Farmers/ fisherfolks - 726
Judiciary - 435
Urban poor - 4,629
NGO - 14,266
Rural/ urban industrial workers - 6,411
Professionals, civilian, general public - 83,545
Multi-sectoral - 228,339


Victims of HR violations (1988-June 2000):
Civilian - 8,374
Rural/ urban industrial workers - 5,189
child, women, student - 2,972
Military/ police - 759
Local officials/ employees - 507
Detainee/ prisoner - 330
Urban poor - 371
Others - 3,372


Alleged Perpetrators of HR Violations (1988-2000):
Police - 8,879
Military - 2,800
Para-military - 1,475
CPP-NPA - 2,298
Civilian - 3,129
Local officials, employees - 2,234
Others - 4,483

Are you surprised at the data? Seems like the more the military and the police attended info-dissemination activities, the more it was likely of them to be HR violators. We hope the trend is not institutionalized.