The observance of International Human Rights Day every 10th of December has been traditionally marked by protest rallies, as regimes post-Martial Law continue to rule with obstinate human rights violations and impunity. The viciousness of human rights records of administrations vary, depending on the degree of perversion of the country’s resources by foreign nations or local big compradors allowed by bureaucrats in power, as the system that allows all these to prosper remain. It varies also on the resistance of the people, be it in the parliament of the streets or the civil war in the countryside.
On December 10 last year, despite opening to peace talks with revolutionaries and dialogues with progressives in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte was faced with protests directed at his acts to rehabilitate the Marcoses, first family and head honchos of the 14-year dictatorship, that culminated (or only began) with the burying of the tyrant Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery).
Only last month, Duterte cancelled peace talks, declared the revolutionary movement terrorists, tagged progressive groups as legal fronts that he would crack down and issue mass arrests. Killings of peasants, national minorities, human rights defenders and even a Catholic priest and a Born Again pastor and other rights violations such as food blockades, bombings, and illegal arrests were reported all over the country as December 10 came. Amid worsening attacks on human rights, the people are being with left with a choice to perish or persist.
