Impact of Canadian aid to the Philippines questioned

Impact of Canadian aid to the Philippines questioned

TORONTO – Returning part-icipants from Canadian Human Rights Fact-Finding Mission to the Philippines, organized by the Philippines-Canada Task Force on Human Rights (PCTFHR), took the Canadian government to task for paying lip service to the intensifying human rights violations in the Philippines instead of being assertive against it.

The returning Canadians chose the weekend of International Human Rights Day (December 10) to bring their findings of their mission back to the Canadian public.

From Nov. 15 to 22, 2006, the fact-finding mission of nine Canadians from four cities witnessed first-hand the impact of the political killings, abductions, enforced disappearances and harassment on grassroots communities in the Philippines.

In Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, the participants of the mission returned to their communities to share with over 150 Canadians and Filipino community members during forums their harrowing experience traveling to the Philippines.

Since Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took power in 2001, KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) has documented over 800 victims of political killings and 206 forcible disappearances of ordinary civilians.
The returning delegation of Canadians explained that many of the 800 victims and disappeared were ordinary civilians who were most likely assassinated by the Philippine military and its agents because of their involvement in legal and democratic organizations that have been openly critical of the Arroyo government.

“What is clearly happening is that Arroyo and her military agents are arbitrarily labeling community leaders and ordinary citizens as guerilla fighters or supporters,” explained Beth Grayer, a community organizer from Vancouver who visited the northern part of the Philippines. “This form of paranoid tagging is wreaking havoc on the lives of regular peasants and people as everyone is suspected as a ‘terrorist’ until they can prove themselves innocent,” ended Grayer.

The forum participants questioned the role of Canadian foreign aid in helping to prop up the Arroyo regime and her military campaign. $22 million in Canadian foreign aid is being sent to the Philippines in the form of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funding to local projects.

The returning delegates questioned the immediate and long-term negative consequences of such funding as the aid is going to the repressive and militarist Arroyo regime and possibly providing fuel to her military campaign.

(PRESS RELEASE)