Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 4th, 2019

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

In fact, that's why we're saying that the international arena for recourse is so important and that it not give up.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay.

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

He curses them. He has cursed the ICC prosecutor. He has cursed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But you're out there; he cannot really harm you.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes, exactly.

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

It's important that you keep on going. It was very well appreciated at home when several parliaments....and I believe the chair was the one who sponsored the bill on Senator de Lima. We picked that up.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes.

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

We picked that up. It gives us spirit. It gives us hope that people are not forgetting that we are getting darker and darker.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

What about the media and its role, or are they complicit in some of this? I'm just finding it hard to believe that a president like this can just come in and everyone is so shocked by his conduct.

Somewhere there was....

Go ahead.

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

You know what happened to Rappler. Maria Ressa was recognized.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Right.

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

She has so many cases now. Even with her board, which is also composed of private sector members, has now also had cases filed. The franchises of our TV networks, which have to be renewed every few years, are now under threat. Our major newspaper, which was very critical, was also put under threat. We don't believe it is an excuse for them to give up, but they have been stymied in a way, but we are very, very....

It is good that there are media people who are standing up and doing all sorts of programs. We are very grateful, for example, for the so-called nightcrawlers, the photographers who keep on documenting the killings all over Manila and are continuing to publish that. Some of these nightcrawlers have had to leave their jobs to do freelance work because otherwise they would have to seek permission from the newspaper.

Really our media is also under threat. There are media people who are standing strong. I think the value of press freedom has now also risen to a higher level among the public since they have clearly seen how with Maria Ressa there was political persecution that was happening.

That's the reality. The attacks are relentless and strong, but we are growing the resistance. When you talk about international support, that recognition of the work that's going on, that recognition of the human rights challenges that we are facing continuously and relentlessly means so much to us.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I have one minute.

I think you were going to tell us a little bit more about the vilification. If we get an international community together, is that something that social media can actually counter very effectively then?

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

Yes.

We do pick up everything that comes out from abroad. It helps to tell the people. I think more and more Filipinos are awakening to that. That is also the truth. There is a constituency that likes Duterte and that is very loud and well resourced to do it. I do believe there is also a community saying that, no, he has crossed the line too many times. We are also starting to stand up and we appreciate the support that comes from outside. It reminds us that we are part of a community of nations that has built a regime of human rights, that we were once so strongly part of.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you very much.

We're now going into the second round, which is five-minute questions. We'll start with Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Deles, for being here today.

I want to ask you about the sources of opposition to the current regime and Mr. Duterte in particular. In your opening statement, you raised examples of civil society. I wonder if you could expand on that.

Does civil society really comprise the main space of opposition for women and women's organizations in particular? Have they taken the lead?

You're nodding, so they have.

How difficult is it for them to operate?

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

Yes, they have taken the lead because the government institutions that are supposed to be doing this are not. We have a Philippine women's commission that is supposed to be the guardian of the Magna Carta of Women, but they have been quiet.

Of course, he appoints the people. He appoints the people to these commissions, and they say that the civil service that is still there will say, “Yes, we call him out. We write a statement to call him out when he comes out with a statement”. Of course, they submit them to the office of the president, and they don't know what happens.

In fact, it is civil society that.... One of the earliest sectors in Philippine society that stood out to say, “No, this cannot be” was the women's movement. In fact, we had to do a lot of reawakening of the passion for feminism, because we had gotten complacent. We had gotten to the level of doing checklists for women and development stuff: “What do you need?” We were really quite in this kind of danger, but very quickly that has revived. I am happy to say that, in fact, the intergenerational thing in the women's movement is one of the most hopeful things to older women like me. The young women who are coming up are talking to each other and finding out what that means.

I think, in fact—and it is one of my advocacies, and I hope that there will be assistance here—we need to set up a parallel type of guardian of women's rights, because our official institutions are not working. We need to be able to bring together prominent individuals—we can say it may be a bit self-commissioning—to become recognized in our society again so that somebody will speak out publicly and in one voice with strong gravitas when there is a need to push back.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you for that.

I think you have an ally in Canada. You will know, of course, that our government has spoken out strongly on extrajudicial killings as part of our foreign policy agenda and the development policy in particular that we've spearheaded under the Prime Minister, under then Minister Bibeau in international development and now Minister Monsef. We have seized the moment to fund women's organizations because we truly believe in making that a fundamental cornerstone of our foreign policy and development policy, and that includes the Philippines.

What else would you like to see Canada do?

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

I would like to see the Canadian embassy, for example, get more engaged in the democratic discourse at home. We hear it from outside; we don't hear it from your representatives inside the Philippines. We are aware of your programs for women and their livelihoods, but there's a bigger assault now.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Yes.

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

We do not see that in the diplomatic community at home. Even the small mission-funded projects are looking and recognizing that, in fact, we have a different threat that faces us now.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

We'll now go to Mr. Sweet for five minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Ms. Quintos Deles, I've read your bio. You've led an extraordinary life in human rights. We can't thank you enough for your good work.

Your courage has already been mentioned, so I want to ask you this directly, because you mentioned some heinous treatment that women who have spoken up have faced. You're here, televised and speaking up very clearly. Are you concerned for your own safety in this regard?

[Teresita Quintos Deles]

Every time, you think twice, but I think you have no choice. I have fought all my life. I fought the Marcos dictatorship. I did it for my children. I now have a grandchild, and I cannot imagine my grandchild being raised where I could not let him listen to the president, not being able to look up to the president, that I could not tell him to respect the president for his views.

I think there is no choice. I have chosen. I have stood. At the age of 70, I climbed again onto the truck to make a speech and call the president a coward, because if you don't do it, then who will do it? We have just invested so much in the democratic project, and we thought we were winning it, that we cannot.... I could not now....

I think that is why the grey power in the Philippines is now coming out. It's because to give up now would be a repudiation of what we have spent our lives for. As someone had said, who is now a widow, if she was fearless before, she is even more so now because she has fewer years in her life now. We have more people on the other side of life, so we have to do it.

I think our effort, of course, is that we are able to touch and make the connection with the younger generation, learn to speak each other's language, because the reality is that we don't. The millennials don't, and that has been one of the challenges and certainly one of the most rewarding things that the younger women are now claiming feminism again and are saying, yes, they value the same values but they will fight it their way. That's fine. Some of our creative actions recently were designed by them, and it was good. It was refreshing. We go and stand out, and it is good that we can work with our young women who have more creative ideas about how to do street action. We don't do the rituals, just the old rituals anymore when we go onstage, when we do our rallies. That is one of the things that we continue to do.

It is a question that we ask. How can you face yourself in the mirror in the morning? How do you explain yourself to your child or your grandchild that you let that go? That is a major question that we are asking. What will the future generations ask of us? What did we do during this dark time? For whatever it's worth, I would like to be able to say I did my part.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

I'm just trying to identify, because we want to do a report and we want to illustrate exactly all of the different places where women human rights defenders are mistreated in different ways and for different reasons. I see that the Philippines has wrestled with some pretty interesting leaders over my lifetime. I see Duterte has withdrawn from the International Criminal Court. The Philippines is actually on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

In spite of that, which should really ignite people passionately in the Philippines, it sounds to me that one of the challenges you're wrestling with is that men, particularly, but maybe some women as well, just won't speak up in the Philippines and push back on this kind of tyranny from the president.