HUMAN

RIGHTS
ATTY. WILLIAM GACETA
CARPENTERO
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFINED:
United Nations

■ Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race,
sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human
rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and
torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and
education, and many more.  Everyone is entitled to these rights, without
discrimination.
Philippine Commission on Human Rights

■ Human rights are supreme, inherent, and inalienable rights to life,

dignity and self-development. It is the essence of these rights that
makes man human.
 Inherent
Fundamental
Basic Inalienable
Characteristics
of Human
Imprescriptible
Rights Indivisible
Universal
interdependent
 As Fundamental Freedom in Political Rights
As Democratic Rights
As Mobility Rights
As Right to Life, Liberty and the Security of the Person
As Legal Rights
Categories of As Rights of Equality

Human As Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Rights As Worker’s Rights

As Aboriginal Rights
As Reproductive Rights
As Protective Rights of Persons in Armed Conflicts
As Right of Self-determination
As Minority Group Right
AS FUNDAMENTAL
FREEDOM IN
POLITICAL RIGHTS
Article III of the 1987 Philippine Constitution or the Bill of Rights
Section 1. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without
due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the
laws.

Section 2. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,

papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever
nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or
warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined
personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the
complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing
the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
■ Section 12. (1) Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense
shall have the right to be informed of his right to remain silent and to have
competent and independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person
cannot afford the services of counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights
cannot be waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel.
(2) No torture, force, violence, threat, intimidation, or any other means which
vitiate the free will shall be used against him. Secret detention places, solitary,
incommunicado, or other similar forms of detention are prohibited.
(3) Any confession or admission obtained in violation of this or Section 17 hereof
shall be inadmissible in evidence against him.
(4) The law shall provide for penal and civil sanctions for violations of this section
as well as compensation to and rehabilitation of victims of torture or similar practices,
and their families.
■ Section 14. (1) No person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense without due
process of law.
(2) In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the
contrary is proved, and shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel, to
be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to have a
speedy, impartial, and public trial, to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have
compulsory process to secure the attendance of witnesses and the production of
evidence in his behalf. However, after arraignment, trial may proceed
notwithstanding the absence of the accused provided that he has been duly
notified and his failure to appear is unjustifiable.
■ Section 15. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except in
cases of invasion or rebellion when the public safety requires it.
■ Section 16. All persons shall have the right to a speedy disposition of their cases before
all judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative bodies.
■ Section 17. No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.
■ Section 18. (1) No person shall be detained solely by reason of his political beliefs
and aspirations.
(2) No involuntary servitude in any form shall exist except as a punishment
for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
■ Section 19. (1) Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or
inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall the death penalty be imposed, unless,
for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides
for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua.
(2) The employment of physical, psychological, or degrading punishment
against any prisoner or detainee or the use of substandard or inadequate penal
facilities under subhuman conditions shall be dealt with by law.
 REPUBLIC ACT NO. 9851
AN ACT DEFINING AND
PENALIZING CRIMES AGAINST
INTERNATIONAL
HUMANITARIAN LAW,
GENOCIDE AND OTHER CRIMES
AGAINST HUMANITY,
ORGANIZING JURISDICTION,
DESIGNATING SPECIAL COURTS,
AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES
Section 2. Declaration of
Principles and State Policies. -
■ (a) The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, adopts
the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the
land and adheres to a policy of peace, equality, justice, freedom, cooperation
and amity with all nations.
■ (b) The state values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full
respect for human rights, including the rights of indigenous cultural
communities and other vulnerable groups, such as women and children;
■ (c) It shall be the responsibility of the State and all other sectors concerned to
resolved armed conflict in order to promote the goal of "Children as Zones of
Peace";
■ (d) The state adopts the generally accepted principles of international law,
including the Hague Conventions of 1907, the Geneva Conventions on the
protection of victims of war and international humanitarian law, as part of the
law our nation;
■ (e) The most serious crimes of concern to the international community as
a whole must not go unpunished and their effective prosecution must be
ensured by taking measures at the national level, in order to put an end to
impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus contribute to the
prevention of such crimes, it being the duty of every State to exercise its
criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes;
■ (f) The State shall guarantee persons suspected or accused of having
committed grave crimes under international law all rights necessary to
ensure that their trial will be fair and prompt in strict accordance with
national and international law and standards for fair trial, It shall also
protect victims, witnesses and their families, and provide appropriate
redress to victims and their families, It shall ensure that the legal systems
in place provide accessible and gender-sensitive avenues of redress for
victims of armed conflict, and
■ (g)The State recognizes that the application of the provisions of this Act
shall not affect the legal status of the parties to a conflict, nor give an
implied recognition of the status of belligerency
Section 4. War Crimes. - For the purpose of this Act, "war crimes" or
"crimes against Interntional Human Humanitarian Law" means:
■ (a) In case of an international armed conflict , grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under
provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:
(1) Willful killing;
(2) Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
(3) Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
(4) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and
carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
(5) Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and
regular trial;
(6) Arbitrary deportation or forcible transfer of population or unlawful confinement;
(7) Taking of hostages;
(8) Compelling a prisoner a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a
hostile power; and
(9) Unjustifiable delay in the repatriation of prisoners of war or other protected persons.
■ (b) In case of a non-international armed conflict, serious violations of common Article 3
to the four (4) Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely , any of the following
acts committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including member
of the armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by
sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause;
(1) Violence to life and person, in particular, willful killings, mutilation, cruel
treatment and torture;
(2) Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and
degrading treatment;
(3) Taking of hostages; and
(4) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous
judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees
which are generally recognized as indispensable.
■ (c) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflict, within the
established framework of international law, namely:
(1) Internationally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against
individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
(2) Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, object which are not
military objectives;
(3) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and
transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions or
Additional Protocol III in conformity with intentional law;
(4) Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or
vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance
with the Charter of the United Nations, as ling as they are entitled to the protection
given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;
(5) Launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of
life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and
severe damage to the natural environment which would be excessive in relation to the
concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;
(6) Launching an attack against works or installations containing dangerous forces in
the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or
damage to civilian objects, and causing death or serious injury to body or health .
(7) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or
buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives, or making
non-defended localities or demilitarized zones the object of attack;
(8) Killing or wounding a person in the knowledge that he/she is hors de
combat, including a combatant who, having laid down his/her arms or no longer
having means of defense, has surrendered at discretion;
(9) Making improper use of a flag of truce, of the flag or the military insignia and
uniform of the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of the distinctive emblems
of the Geneva Conventions or other protective signs under International
Humanitarian Law, resulting in death, serious personal injury or capture;
(10) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion,
education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and
places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military
objectives. In case of doubt whether such building or place has been used to make
an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used;
(11) Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical
mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind, or to removal of
tissue or organs for transplantation, which are neither justified by the medical, dental
or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his/her interest, and
which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons;
(12) Killing, wounding or capturing an adversary by resort to perfidy;
(13) Declaring that no quarter will be given;
(14) Destroying or seizing the enemy's property unless such destruction or seizure is
imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;
(15) Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;
(16) Ordering the displacements of the civilian population for reasons related to the
conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons
so demand;
(17) Transferring, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of parts of its own
civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all
or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;
(18) Commiting outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and
degrading treatments;
(19) Commiting rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave
breach of the Geneva Conventions or a serious violation of common Article 3 to the
Geneva Convensions;
(20) Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain
points, areas or military forces immune from military operations;
(21) Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by
depriving them of objects indespensable to their survival, including willfully
impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions and their
Additional Protocols;
(22) In an international armed conflict, compelling the nationals of the hostile
party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even
if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war;
(23) In an international armed conflict, declaring abolished, suspended or
inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile
party;
■ 24) Commiting any of the following acts:
(i) Conscripting, enlisting or recruiting children under the age of fifteen (15) years into the
national armed forces;
(ii) Conscripting, enlisting or recruiting children under the age of eighteen (18) years into
an armed force or group other than the national armed forces; and
(iii) Using children under the age of eighteen (18) years to participate actively in hostilities;
and
■ (25) Employing means of warfare which are prohibited under international law, such as:
(i) Poison or poisoned weapons;
(ii) Asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices;
(iii) Bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with hard
envelopes which do not entirely cover the core or are pierced with incisions; and
(iv) Weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of the nature to
cause superfluous injury or unecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in
violation of the international law of armed conflict.
Section 5. Genocide - (a) For the purpose of this Act, "genocide" means any of the
following acts with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, religious,
social or any other similar stable and permanent group as such:

(1) Killing members of the group;

(2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
(5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Section 6. Other Crimes Against Humanity. - For the purpose of this act, "other crimes
against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread
or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Willful killing;

(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Arbitrary deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of
international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other
form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural,
religious, gender, sexual orientation or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible
under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime defined in
this Act;
(i) Enforced or involuntary disappearance of persons;
(j) Apartheid; and
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to
body or to mental or physical health.
Any person found guilty of committing any of
the acts specified herein shall suffer the penalty
provided under Section 7 of this Act.
Section 7. Penalties. - Any person found guilty of committing any of the acts provided under
Sections 4, 5 and 6 of this Act shall suffer the penalty of reclusion temporal in its medium to
maximum period and a fine ranging from One hundred thousand pesos (Php 100,000.00) to
Five hundred thousand pesos (Php 500,000.00).
When justified by the extreme gravity of the crime, especially where the commision of any of
the crimes specified herein results in death or serious physical injury, or constitutes rape, and
considering the individual circumstances of the accused, the penalty of reclusion perpetua and
a fine ranging from Five hundred thousand pesos (Php 500,000.00) to One million pesos (Php
1,000,000.00) shall be imposed.
Any person found guilty of inciting others to commit genocide referred to in Section 5(b) of
this Act shall suffer the penalty of prision mayor in its minimum period and a fine ranging
from Ten thousand pesos (Php 10,000.00) to Twenty thousand pesos (Php 20,000.00).
In addition, the court shall order the forfeiture of proceeds, property and assets derived,
directly or indirectly, from that crime, without prejudice to the rights of bona fide third (3rd)
parties. The court shall also impose the corresponding accessory penalties under the Revised
Penal Code, especially where the offender is a public officer.