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FOR PUBLICATION
AHRC-ART-066-2009
December 7, 2009
An Article Series on Human Rights and Culture by the Asian Human Rights Commission
HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE - Vol. 2, ISSUE NO. 30
Welcome to Vol. 2, Issue No. 30. In this issue we have a poem by Airyn Lentija, A Single Thread: Poetry. This is followed by our regular section on Human Rights Quotations. In our Human Rights Activists section we pay tribute to Alejandro Reblando, one of the journalists killed in the recent massacre in Mindanao.
Publications -- We are pleased to announce the release of two new publications, they are the book, The Phantom Limb: Failing judicial systems, torture and human rights work in Sri Lanka and the latest issue of Article 2. Details of these publications may be found in the Publications section.
As always, the AHRC is grateful to all our contributors and we would like to remind our readers that your comments on this issue and contributions for future issues may be sent to ahrc@ahrc.asia.
You may view the previous issues at: http://newsletters.ahrchk.net/hrc/.
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Still waters on shallow river Do you still recall the precious moments of my childhood, Wonderful memories of me Enjoying the richness and the beauty that you hold? In my mind there's you and the thought of us Serenely sweet express As your crystal clear water Runs with gentle waves Reflecting the calm sun That shed its tender light To the dancing bamboo trees At the back of my image. Dear still waters on shallow river Where's my cheek and brow now The sun still hanging in the sky At the back of me And bamboo trees sways freely But you're blind as a bat to see us now Tainted and deaf as a post Dying.....
A Single Thread: Poetry
Airyn Lentija
Calm was the sky
that contained clouds of white
like cotton balls joined
creating different shapes
tracing each other's currents
on those calm, still days.
In secret we sang
silly songs of our hearts.
We laughed and we cried
on every poetry shared.
How our souls entwined?
Too deeply to tell.
Now gone were those days
so warm with our smile.
In silence,words lost its fire.
Our dwelling place is freezing.
And not even a Sun's whisper
can burn its icy cocoon.
And to think those still days
wasn't dead as a dornail.
It only awaits for our souls to cling.
Why dont we sing together
with the love that binds us,
A single thread: POETRY.
 Ms. Airyn Lentija works as a domestic helper in Hong Kong. She has enjoyed reading and writing poetry since her days in elementary school. This is Airynˇ¦s third submission and we look forward to receiving more of her work in the future. Further details of Airyn's work may be found at: http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/profile/airyn?xgs=1
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Human Rights Quotations
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil.
Hannah Arendt
Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.
Roger Nash Baldwin
"Torture is banned but in two-thirds of the world's countries it is still being committed in secret. Too many governments still allow wrongful imprisonment, murder or "disappearance" to be carried out by their officials with impunity."
Peter Benenson
We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all. We discovered that life at any price has no value whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges, the prides, the rights, the joys which make it worth living, and also worth giving. And we also discovered that there is something more hideous, more atrocious than war or than death; and that is to live in fear.
Eve Curie, French author
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In this issue human rights & Culture pays tribute to one of the many journalist killed during the recent massacre of human rights activists, journalists and supporters of a local politician in Mindanao
Human Rights Activists - Alejandro Reblando
Before the advent of electronic mail, high speed internet connections, and mobile phones, all part of the technology used in transmitting information that we now take for granted, Alejandro Reblando, Bong, to his friends and colleagues, was an eyewitness to what was happening in Mindanao. Indeed, he was not just an eyewitness but was very much a part of the stories he reported on. For two decades Bong Reblando collected exclusive stories and fearlessly reported on them in the worst of conditions. Alejandro Bong Reblando was one of the 30 journalists slaughtered in the Maguindanao massacre on November 23.
 In this photo:
Manila Bulletin (MB) reporter Bong M. Reblando (2nd from left) smiles in this undated file photo taken during a past Saudi Arabian national day celebration in Makati City/ from the Manila Bulletin
Fifty-four-year-old Bong Reblando was no neophyte. At the time of his death, he was writing for the Manila Bulletin, a national daily newspaper. He spent many years writing for them as a correspondent before they absorbed him as regular staff in 2008 based in General Santos City.
He began his professional career in the early 1980s as a broadcaster and reporter for dxCP, a Catholic-run radio station in General Santos City. In those days, only a few local radio stations were broadcasting. dxCP was once one of the more popular radio stations. It was where the residents turned for news and current affairs, not only within the city but also in neighbouring provinces and municipalities of South Cotabato.
Bong Reblando knew the very fabric of the inside stories and how violent it could get covering local elections. He was a stringer for the Associated Press (AP), an American news agency, from late 1980s to early the 2000s covering the southern Philippines. He also wrote for and edited stories for numerous community newspapers in General Santos City, one of which was the Mindanao Bulletin that began publication in 1985.
In this country's troubled region, it was very easy for journalists like Bong and his colleagues to become desensitized in covering the often violent stories from the conflict areas. Their compassion and commitment to their work dictated that they had to be not just onlookers but actually part of the story. These were the types of stories and places that they had to cover and they never shirked the responsibility. They received satisfaction, not only from reporting the news, but by having the authority of saying: I was there!
Bong Reblando was a veteran and had personal experience of covering election-related violence. He had also covered the protracted war in conflict affected areas in Mindanao, numerous kidnapping cases and bomb blasts.
With their years of experience Bong and his group did not take lightly the potential danger of reporting on the November 23 would-be filing of the Certificate of Candidacy (CoC) by the wife of a local politician, Ismael Mangudadatu in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao. They discussed thoroughly the security arrangements and only after they got the assurance from a local top military commander that it was safe for them to go did they proceed.
Amongst his contemporaries, Alejandro Bong Reblando was known for never running out of steam when working in the field and writing exclusive stories, both for the Filipino people and the world.
To see one's name in a newspaper headline is, perhaps petty to others, but it is what motivates the local journalist to do well in their profession. Bong Reblando surpassed many of his contemporaries, who either relocated to other places or retired.
'He told me the area is cleared'
It was Bong who spoke with Alfredo Cayton, commanding General of the Army's 6th Infantry Division (ID), asking his opinion as to whether it was safe for the group to proceed. Cayton told him that they could and the area where their convoy would be passing through has been cleared of any possible danger. This is what Bong told a colleague who survived the massacre.
According to his newspaper, Bong considered Cayton as his friend. In this part of the country journalists have to befriend top military and police commanders, not only to establish good working relationships and as sources of news, but also as a form of protection. However, when it comes to reporting on military personnel, police officers and government officials who are abusive and corrupt these journalists will not hesitate to burn their bridges.
Bong Reblando's body was found hog-tied inside the vehicle of Henry Araneta, a reporter for dzRH radio, who was also killed during the massacre. Bong was killed by a shotgun blast and his body was among the most badly mutilated corpses.
Covering violence: elections, kidnappings and bomb blasts
In 1995, during the election for mayor in Palembang, Sultan Kudarat, about two hours from General Santos City, Bong Reblando and another colleague (who survived the Maguindanao massacre), had to stay there for a week to cover a brewing confrontation between two powerful and bitter rival clans in local politics. At that time hardly any journalist covered election violence in the area of southern Mindanao.
Bong's wife, Myrna, had to travel to Palembang to take him back to the city with her. His relatives and his colleagues were worried because they had no idea of what had happened to them. The two could not be contacted as there were no mobile phones in those days.
In 2001, Reblando made extensive coverage of the kidnapping of Chinese engineers in Carmen, North Cotabato. While one kidnap victim was later released, two of his companions were killed by the abductors. The kidnapping was a huge story as it involved the diplomatic relationship between China and the Philippines. Reblando was one of those who produced a blow by blow account of the kidnapping case.
For most of his adult and professional life, Reblando covered the decades-old conflict in Mindanao. The protracted war between the Moro rebels and the government forces, the frequent bombings, hostage-taking, and the like. They were all stories that could not escape from his notice.
From phone lines to computers
In those days to be able to send their stories to their outlets in Manila, Bong Reblando had to dictate his story, written at the end of the day's work, by phone from a local telecommunications office to the news desk. There were many times when he and his fellow local journalists were crowding the office, each waiting for their turn at the telephone.
It was only after the fax messaging technology was introduced that Bong Reblando and his colleagues began sending their stories in writing. Instead of making phone calls, they started making use of typewriters to type their stories and then send them by fax. This is how his employers at the Manila Bulletin and the intentional wire agencies to whom he was sending stories receive his work.
Some of the stories that Bong wrote may still be read online.
Alejandro Bong Reblando is survived by his wife, Myrna and seven children.
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Publications
The Phantom Limb: Failing judicial systems, torture and human rights work in Sri Lanka
A Study of Police Torture in Sri Lanka by Morten Koch Andersen and Basil Fernando
The Asian Human Rights Commission wishes to inform you about the publication of a new book on the failing judicial systems and the issue of the endemic torture practiced at police stations in Sri Lanka.
 This study is a result of the cooperation between the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT).
The study was done in January 2008 and the data was processed during April and May 2008 at the AHRC office in Hong Kong. The idea and outline of the study was developed by Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission and the processing and analysis of the data and the writing of the report was completed by Morten Koch Andersen of RCT.
The study seeks to explore the routine use of torture by the police and illuminate the widespread violence and human rights violations that are part of everyday life in Sri Lanka. It seeks to show the apparent neglect of the Sri Lankan state to stop these atrocities and provide adequate protection and remedies for the victims by ignoring publicly available information provided by state commissioned investigations and reports on the continuously declining state of affairs in the police force and the general deteriorating of human rights in the country.
Much human rights reporting that focus on crisis and immediate risks, dangers and sufferings tend to overlook historic processes and social ordering systems -- such as caste -- in their (often case based) illustrative descriptions of repressive practices, misuse and mismanagement of authority and the inadequacy of the justice system to protect the citizens. However, it is the proposition of the study that to investigate torture practices and the apparent inability to change the current state of affairs one has to explore the logics based in deep rooted social systems and attitudes. This insight offers an explanation for the socioeconomic bias in the enactment of torture and the reluctance and resistance to change in the criminal justice and political system. In this regard, caste as an ever present social ordering system in South Asia and Sri Lanka appears to be a viable and fundamental issue to include in the analysis to understand current human rights abuses.
The argument is that a 'debris' of the caste system somehow orders social perceptions, relations and actions in the unfolding of the criminal justice system, especially in the images of the mariginalized laboring poor. To do this, we will look into the interconnectedness of the early judicial system and administration and the caste system.
[Published in November 2009 jointly by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Hong Kong and the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT), Denmark. 80 pages, ISBN: 978-962-8314-47-8]
 Article 2, Vol.8. No.4 is now available.
Article 2 is a quarterly publication of the Asian Legal Resource Centre
This issue covers the following:
An essay on abysmal lawlessness & the zero status of Sri Lankans
By Basil Fernando, Director, Asian Human Rights Commission & Asian Legal Resource Centre, Hong Kong, with staff of the commission
The distinction between genuine and counterfeit actions for justice
The lost meaning of legality
The predominance of the security apparatus
The disappearance of truth through propaganda
The superman controller
Destroyed public institutions
The zero status of citizens
Further information on Article 2 may be found at: www.article2.org
 We are also pleased to announce that the next issue of Ethics in Action is now available. In this issue, Vol. 3 No. 5, we have an article on the appeal to help flood victims in the Philippines; there is a report on the abuse and humiliation of three Pakistani women and how the case casts shame on the country's justice system; and also in Pakistan the issue of love marriages - women and the rule of law. The continuation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act in Sri Lanka is a crime against the country's children and the terrible situation in the Philippines that makes it necessary for the Police to offer guns to journalists at risk are just some of the articles included in this issue.
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The Asian Human Rights Commission is regularly issuing this article series on Human Rights and Culture in which various cultural expressions, poems, stories, pictures and other forms of cultural expression that are based on the theme of justice, will be published. A pivotal issue in modern literature is justice, particularly the enormous unleashing of injustice under fascist, communist and other authoritarian regime including those that pursue an unbridled market economy have generated responses from created writers. This search for justice is at the very essence of being human. Human beings are part of nature and part of each other. Perhaps the lines of John Donne are most relevant: ˇ§... any manˇ¦s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;ˇ¨
Contemporary mass culture promotes violence and destruction. There are those who are opposed to mass culture and want to reclaim the best traditions of human culture within which justice remains a core issue. This column will provide space for those who wish to share their creative initiatives.
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
Posted on 2009-12-07
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