Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. Actually, I termed it as escalating. In the previous subcommittee, I think the delegation mentioned 68 cases of extrajudicial killings in April 2012. We are nearly in November and it has almost doubled to 114. Whether it's less than 114, there were 1,200 victims in the nin

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, thank you. Canada is known internationally for its respect for human rights. As we all know, human rights consider no borders. Any action on the part of a Canadian government study mission would very much impact on the lives of the Filipino people and the human rights victi

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, thank you. The main proof is the fact that, for example, the identities of the two army men arrested in the killing of Benjamin Bayles had to be wrangled from the AFP and the government. In fact, sadly, despite subpoenas from the court, the government refused to testify in

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. While the report by Karapatan, one of the largest human rights groups in the Philippines, of 114 extrajudicial killings may not be of the same level as the 1,200 extrajudicial killings at the time of Arroyo, as I mentioned a while ago, one death is one death too many. The g

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. I would certainly agree with that. In fact, a study mission would look into human rights conditions. The committee can decide where the study would go. Yes, we would heartily support such a study mission. I'm sure it would create a lot of impact.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, we did file a bill on enforced disappearances. I'm very happy to note that sometimes you win small victories. The Philippine congress recently passed the bill on enforced disappearances. We now have a law that is very similar to our bill. We now have a law that makes enforce

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, it is part of our comprehensive efforts to address human rights violations. We file bills. We have advocacy forums and take other actions, yes.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, there have been accusations of involvement on the part of Canadian mining firms. To be fair, it is not just Canadian mining firms in the country, but other large mining firms from other countries as well. There were charges of their involvement in using paramilitary units an

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There has been an ongoing war in Mindanao where the mining firms actually are and have been for a long period of time, way back to the 1960s. That is an issue of the right to self-determination of the Moro people, who believe—and I would agree with the Moro people—that they were

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I see no reason why it would not help. In fact, it would help bring to the fore the issue that if we have transparency, then we should have no problem at all with UN mechanisms investigating. I don't know if it will result in a positive response on the part of government becaus

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That would help a lot, Professor Cotler.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The killing of the 157 members of our party in the previous election did have a lot of impact on our party. I would charge it to the very strong support of our constituents and the Filipino people that our party, Bayan Muna, survived the attack. Not only did we survive the attack

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. The writ of amparo, a novel legal mechanism, was employed by the Supreme Court precisely to stem the tide of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Our largest human rights organization in the Philippines, the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, actually supported

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The effect would be both. It would be symbolic in the sense that the presence of a study mission would, in fact, impact immediately on alleviating the attacks. Other than that, I'm sure that in the Philippines you would have better access to information, not just on TVI, but on o

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Sorry about that, but yes there are church groups that would be able to also provide an itinerary there.