Nationwide Road Show on ASEAN and Human Rights Ongoing

Atty. Maita Chan-Gonzaga, PWG program officer, leads the discusssion on ASEAN.

In order to publicize the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its impact on human rights in the region and in the Philippines, the Philippine Working Group (PWG), the local arm of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, organized a nationwide university road show entitled “Human Rights: Asan na yan sa ASEAN?” In partnership with the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP) and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, it especially looks at the developments regarding the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). The road show started on 11 September 2009 and is projected to run until March 2010.

The set up is as follows: a team of human rights experts (one representative from the CHR, one from civil society and one from the PWG) visit the schools. One speaker discusses the human rights situation in the Philippines and issues relevant to the locality. The other two focus on ASEAN and the different international human rights systems, particularly the AICHR.

Out of the 60 schools targeted, 19 have already been reached. Of these around 2,800 individuals coming from the academe, government agencies and civil society have attended the forums. The PWG will visit 26 more schools before the end of this year.

With the launch of the AICHR last October 2009, the road shows have even more significance. The PWG understands that these interactive discussions allow participants to understand how this human rights body will affect them. More importantly, it will allow the PWG to gather their views and opinions on how to strengthen the functions of the AICHR. The Working Group could then use these in its future engagements with ASEAN on how to improve the AICHR.