US on Human Rights in Philippines: Unsolved Cases, Unpunished Perpetrators

The CHR is an independent agency mandated to protect and promote human rights. It is empowered to investigate all human rights violations and to monitor the government’s compliance with international human rights treaty obligations. The CHR has nonbinding authority to clear on military and higher-level police promotions. The commission has a chairperson and four members. CHR monitoring and investigating continued to be hamstrung by insufficient resources. Approximately one-third of the country’s 42,000 barangays (villages) had human rights action centers, which coordinated with CHR regional offices; however, the CHR’s regional and subregional offices remained understaffed and underfunded. The CHR nationwide budget for the year was $4.56 million (216.49 million pesos).

Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons

The law prohibits discrimination against women, children, and minorities; however, vague regulations and budgetary constraints hindered implementation of these protections.

Women

Rape continued to be a problem, with most cases unreported. During the year the PNP reported 879 rape cases. There were reports of rape and sexual abuse of women in police or protective custody–often women from marginalized groups, such as suspected prostitutes, drug users, and lower income individuals arrested for minor crimes.

Spousal rape and abuse are illegal, but enforcement was ineffective.

Violence against women remained a serious problem. The law criminalizes physical, sexual, and psychological harm or abuse to women and their children committed by their spouses or partners. During the year the PNP reported 3,892 cases of wife battering and physical injuries. This number likely underreported significantly the level of violence against women.

The PNP and DSWD both maintained help desks to assist victims of violence against women and to encourage the reporting of crimes. With the assistance of NGOs, officers received gender sensitivity training to deal with victims of sexual crimes and domestic violence. Approximately 9 percent of PNP officers were women. The PNP has a Women and Children’s Unit to deal with these issues.

Prostitution is illegal but was a widespread problem. Many women suffered exposure to violence through their recruitment, often through deception, into prostitution. Penalties for prostitution are light, but detained prostitutes were sometimes subjected to administrative indignities and extortion. The DSWD continued to provide temporary shelter and counseling to women engaged in prostitution. From January to September, DSWD provided temporary shelter and counseling to 47 women who were victims of involuntary prostitution. Some local officials condoned a climate of impunity for those who exploited prostitutes. There were no convictions under the provision of the law criminalizing the act of engaging the services of a prostitute.

Sex tourism and trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation and forced labor were serious problems. An antitrafficking law outlaws a number of activities specifically related to trafficking and provides stiff penalties for convicted offenders.

The law prohibits sexual harassment. However, sexual harassment in the workplace was thought to be widespread and underreported due to victims’ fear of losing their jobs. Female employees in special economic zones (SEZs) were particularly at risk; most were economic migrants who had no independent workers’ organization to assist with filing complaints. Women in the retail industry worked on three- to five-month contracts and were often reluctant to report sexual harassment for fear their contracts would not be renewed.

The law does not provide for divorce, although courts generally recognize the legality of divorces obtained in other countries if one of the parties is a foreign national. The government recognizes religious annulment, but the process can be costly, which precludes annulment as an option for many women. Many lower-income couples simply separated informally without severing their marital ties. The family code provides that in child custody cases resulting from annulment, illegitimacy, or divorce in another country, children under the age of seven are placed in the care of the mother unless there is a court order to the contrary. Children over the age of seven normally also remained with the mother, although the father could dispute custody through the courts.

In law, but not always in practice, women have most of the rights and protections accorded to men. Although women continued to face workplace discrimination, there was improvement on the status of employment of women. In a 2006 labor force survey, 58 percent of government officials, corporate executives, managers and supervisors were women. There were fewer unemployed women than men; the unemployment rate for women was 6.9 percent, while the rate for men was 7.7 percent.

The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, composed of 10 government officials and 13 NGO leaders appointed by the president, acted as an oversight body whose goal is to press for effective implementation of programs benefiting women.

Children

The government devoted considerable resources to the education, welfare, and development of children. The Department of Education (DepEd) had the largest budget of any cabinet department: 12 percent of the national budget. Nevertheless, children faced serious problems.

Elementary and secondary education is free and compulsory through age 11, but the quality of education remained poor due in part to inadequate resources. During the year according to DepEd figures, the estimated annual per pupil expenditure for basic education was $133 (6,331 pesos). The DepEd budget for this year was $2.8 billion (135 billion pesos). The public school enrollment rate for 2006-7 was 76 percent, slightly up from 74 percent for the 2005-6 school year. According to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) statistics, girls and boys attended school in approximately equal numbers.

Boys and girls had equal access to state provided medical care. According to government reports, 68.3 percent of children were well nourished, and 83 percent were fully immunized. The child mortality rate was 33 out of 1,000 children under age five. Most of the malnourished children were in villages in the southern provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, and Tawi-Tawi. According to UNICEF data from 1996 to 2005, 28 percent of children under age five were underweight.