Abstract
On 24 and 25 November 1996, 18 heads of state attended the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at Subic Bay, 150 km northwest of Manila. Formerly a United States naval base with a land area of over 7000 hectares, Subic Bay was transformed into an export-processing zone and ship-repair facility following the termination of the US-Philippines Bases Agreement in 1992. By 1996 Subic had become a successful industrial enclave and was chosen as the summit venue to highlight the Philippines’ new-found economic dynamism. At the same time, 400 activists and academics from the Philippines and abroad attended a counter-summit in Manila organized by the Manila People’s Forum on APEC (MFPA). Human rights issues figured prominently in the backdrop to the counter-summit. José Ramos Horta, a prominent advocate of the independence of East Timor and winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, was denied a visa to attend the conference. Provoking further outcry among civil rights campaigners, other activists were denied entry to the Philippines at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport. At Plaza Roma in Manila’s Intramuros district, meanwhile, a “tent city” supported by human rights and other NGOs was erected to highlight the eviction of an estimated 250 000 slum-dwellers from their homes in a campaign to improve the city’s appearance for the APEC summit.1
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Notes
NEDA, The President’s 1995 Socio-Economic Report (Manila: National Economic and Development Authority, March 1996).
Cf. Fidel Ramos, “Philippines 2000: Our Development Strategy” (pamphlet), Multi-Sectoral Reform Secretariat (Manila, 1993).
Eric Guiterrez, The Ties That Bind: A Guide to Family, Business and Other Interests in the Ninth House of Representatives (Manila: Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism and Institute for Popular Democracy, 1994), p. 4.
Temario Rivera, Landlords and Capitalists: Class, Family and State in Philippine Manufacturing (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1994).
Rosalinda Pineda-Ofreno, The Philippines: Debt and Poverty (Oxford: Oxfam Publications, 1991), p. 2.
James Putzel, A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines, Catholic Institute for International Relations (New York: London and Monthly Review Press, 1992), pp. 23 and 27.
Gerard Clarke, “Participation of Protest: Non-Governmental Organisations and Philippine Politics,” PhD dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1995, pp. 87 and 305.
Robert L. Youngblood, Marcos against the Church: Economic Development and Political Repression in the Philippines (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 172–3.
Abraham Sarmiento, “Philippine Experience in Enforcing a Bill of Rights: Political Realities and Judicial Perspectives,” Human Rights Forum, 11, 1 (1992), 33.
The seeds of the deteriorating relations were sown, however, from the earliest weeks of 1987. On 22 January 1987, 15 000 farmers marched on the Presidential Palace to protest government back-tracking on redistributive agrarian reform. At Mendiola Bridge, police and soldiers opened fire and 18 demonstrators were killed. On 27 January, rebel soldiers launched their third coup attempt against the government, designed to disrupt the referendum on the draft constitution scheduled for 2 February and to end the government’s peace overtures to the National Democratic Front-Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (NDF-CPP-NPA). Although the coup was defeated, and the referendum went ahead as scheduled, the coup attempt achieved its other objective, and in a speech on 18 March 1987 Aquino promised to “unleash the sword of war” against insurgents. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and Antoinette Raquiza (eds), Motions for Peace (Manila: Coalition for Peace, 1993), p. 11.
The military estimated NPA strength in early 1989 at 24 000 regular guerillas with 10 000 high-powered rifles, and with control or influence over 8000 of the country’s 41 000 barangays (villages) (Gregg R. Jones, Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), p. 8). In all probability, however, these figures were slightly higher in mid-to-late 1988.
Amnesty International, “The Philippines: a Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns,” ASA 35/02/90 (London: Amnesty International International Secretariat, May 1990), pp. 3 and 5.
Clarke, “Participation of Protest,” p. 105; LCHR, Impunity: Prosecutions of Human Rights Violations in the Philippines (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, September 1991).
MHRC, “A Brief Profile of the Moro Human Rights Centre” (Manila: Moro Human Rights Center, February 1995).
Corazon Aquino, “Transparency and Democracy,” speech to the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 16 June 1993, reproduced in The Manila Bulletin, 19 June 1993.
TFDP, Pumipiglas 3: Tonnent and Struggle After Marcos (Quezon City: Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, 1993), cited in Clarke, “Participation of Protest,” p. 292.
FLAG, The Free Legal Assistance Group, 1974–1994 (Quezon City: Free Legal Assistance Group, 1994), p. 56.
Republic of Philippines, Medium Term Philippine Development Plan, 1993–1998, RoP, 1995.
See PAHRA, Dark Stains Spreading on Canvas: A Human Rights Report on the Third Year of the Ramos Government (Quezon City: Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, 1996)
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Clarke, G. (2000). Economic and Political Reform in the Philippines, 1986–96: the Evolving Role of Human Rights NGOs. In: Kleinberg, R.B., Clark, J.A. (eds) Economic Liberalization, Democratization and Civil Society in the Developing World. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62818-6_3
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