Category: Opinions

by Umberto Bacchi | @UmbertoBacchi | Thomson Reuters Foundation

Wednesday, 28 April 2021 11:00 GMT

Digital tools to certify immunity from COVID-19 could help ease lockdowns, but raise equality and privacy concerns

By Umberto Bacchi

April 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Britain plans to use a National Health Service phone app as its COVID-19 ‘vaccine passport’ certificate that will allow its population to travel internationally this summer, fuelling the global debate over the use of certificates to reopen the economy.

As the rollout of vaccines against COVID-19 gathers pace, countries are exploring how documents, mostly digital, could help reopen borders by identifying those who are protected against the virus.

France became the first EU country to trial an app-based travel pass that stores negative COVID-19 test results and will soon allow vaccination certificates on flights to Corsica and its overseas territories.

Thailand has laid out plans to adopt a vaccine passport to allow travel to other countries.

Proponents say identifying people who are immune to the novel coronavirus or at lower risk of spreading it could help open up travel and other services. But, critics have raised questions about privacy, health and discrimination.

As more technology firms develop digital certificates that can be accessed on smartphones by employers, airlines and others, here is all you need to know about health passports.

WHAT ARE HEALTH PASSPORTS?

The term health passport, or health pass, generally refers to documents – in paper or digital format – that certify a person is unlikely to either catch or spread a disease.

With the novel coronavirus, the proposed certificates would attest one of three things: that the holder has been vaccinated, has tested negative for the virus or has recovered from it.

Their use could allow governments to lift some pandemic-induced restrictions, allowing people to travel in planes, attend concerts, go to work or dine out, supporters say.

“We’ve tried many different solutions to properly and safely reopen hospitality, sport venues and other things that are very important, not just for our economy, but also for mental wellbeing of people,” said Ryan Wain, an advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a British think tank.

“And really, the only way that we can properly get those open is knowing that people entering those venues don’t have COVID,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

WHERE ARE THEY BEING USED?

Different health passes have been trialled by governments and firms around the world in recent months.

Tech giants including Microsoft Corp , Oracle Corp and healthcare companies Cigna Corp and Mayo Clinic in January become part of a coalition pushing for digital records of people who get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The project, called Vaccination Credential Initiative, aims to help people get encrypted digital copies of their immunization records stored in a digital wallet of their choice.

Bahrain launched a digital COVID-19 vaccine passport in February, one of the first countries to do so. Sweden plans to launch a vaccine passport by summer.

Last October, Estonia and the World Health Organization started a pilot for a digital vaccine certificate.

Philippine Daily Inquirer | March 29, 2021

OPINION

Bishop Broderick Pabillo deserves praise not just from Catholics, but from all Filipinos. He has contributed a valuable element lacking in today’s national governance — a reasonable approach to solving crises. The bishop’s indignant and firm riposte at the latest move of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases comes from a critical and creative mind that seeks the spiritual good of his flock. His approach can be useful in pursuing not merely the spiritual aspect, but also the other facets surrounding this present crisis.

The good bishop has pointed out the flaws of the system now in use in proposing solutions and tactics. He was right in demanding clarity of concepts and strategies. How do you define “mass gatherings” in the first place, for example? Is a worship service, kept to the minimum of participants and adhering to health protocols, necessarily an illegal mass gathering? He was also correct in insisting that actions, before being imposed, should go through open, enlightened, and participative consultations. Decisions from above that do not take into account the actual situations and do not involve the people who will be affected are oppressive, if not unrealistic, prejudiced, and ineffective.

It was clear that the bishop was unfazed by the negative reactions of regime supporters and even of bullying threats from a spokesman who should be reminded that he is a mere mouthpiece and not a decision-maker. What mattered most to Bishop Pabillo was doing his responsibility as a cleric and as a citizen. His pastoral statement consisted neither of vitriol nor empty rhetoric, if you return to the text itself. Nowhere did he call for defiance, since he himself vigorously enforces to this day the protocols in the churches under his care. He, however, did challenge the concerned officials to think and act rightly this time, and hopefully in the future. Surprisingly, they responded to his challenge positively.

The Church, imperfect and far from spotless, nevertheless has 500 years of direct encounter and experience in helping the sick and the dying, the hungry and the homeless, the depressed and the unemployed, and it has done more than its responsible share during this pandemic. It has also not failed to add its voice to the clamor for the rights of marginalized, indigenous, targeted, and tagged individuals and groups. In an atmosphere that tries to quell the opinions, suggestions, and questions of people, and that tries to dismiss dissenters as nonpartners in dialogue, the bishop’s voice and directive to his church come as a source of light and hope. Bishop Pabillo not only spoke out; he first provoked his own people to be seriously decisive, participative, and reasonable. Those in power who heard his voice learned a valuable lesson, too.

JONATHAN DANIELS

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By John Molo
Chair, Political Law, UP College of Law
Past President, Harvard Law School Alumni Association (Philippines)

Four Days before Christmas, people woke up to the chilling video of a policeman killing a mother and son in front of their neighbors in Tarlac.  After thousands of deaths over the past 4.5 years, I wondered what made this one trigger national indignation. The video gave a clear answer.

Broad daylight. Several people watching. A crying mother hugging her son. The policeman clinically pulls out his gun. Shoots her point blank. Then he shoots her son. He shoots them again, then walks away. All of this as his young daughter watched.

The public wasn’t prepared to deal with a video that displays in full view the monster that the past four years had created – an emboldened and unaccountable police force. That policeman knew he was being recorded. It didn’t faze him. His casual manner implies it was not the first time he did it. Senator Angara called it “cold-blooded”. This is just the latest among many incidents- from Kian de los Santos, to Winston Ragos to the 4 soldiers massacred by policemen in Sulu. If the senator’s characterization is accurate, then what allowed cold-blooded killers to take root inside the national police force?

The military and the police are the only agencies the State entrusted with the monopoly to kill. After the Marcos dictatorship, the 1987 Constitution instituted provisions to erase the impunity of the Philippine Constabulary and replace it with a professional system. Though they did so at varying degrees, the presidents that followed worked on those principles to en-sure that the police of today would be different from its predecessors.

Unfortunately, these gains were systematically stamped out by the present one. You see this in the defensive statements of police higher-ups alluding to “property dispute”, and “altercation”, as if both justified the killing of mother and son. Whatever disagreement there was, we used to agree that the solution is to let the courts decide. Now, it doesn’t matter. Now all it takes is the judgment of the men wielding the gun. “Communist”. “Addict”. “Bayaran”. “Nanlaban”. “Mayabang”. Any of these words is a death sentence.

You see this in a now deleted Facebook post, where a municipal police station OIC described the Tarlac killing as a “lesson” adding that, “Kahit puti na buhok o ubanin na tayo eh matuto tayo rumispeto sa ating Kapulisan.” [Even if you are already old, learn to show respect to the police.] It seems we now have police officers that believe disrespectful seniors deserve to be shot. This, while assassins roam the country taking down doctors, lawyers and even judges.

This culture of impunity didn’t take hold overnight. It took 4 and a half years, and the blood of more than a thousand fellow Filipinos to get here. It started with the first “addict” killed in Tondo. It then turned to minors like Kian, as well as that baby dismissed as “collateral damage”. We saw it prey on journalists (“presstitutes”), teachers, students (“activists”) and even doctors (“communists”). We in the legal profession feel it in the loss of 55 (and counting) colleagues – from the killing of a young 35-year-old lawyer in Palawan to our judges who no longer feel safe in their own chambers. Whether it be vigilantes, death squads, assassins-for-hire or “rogue cops”, violent killings are now occurring at an alarming rate. Violence is overtaking law as the preferred method of dispute resolution.

Shay Cullen
4 December 2020

The empowerment of women and girls is a most urgent need in today’s world where discrimination, violence and exploitation of women and girls, especially in the developing world, is tearing the heart out of society and family life causing human suffering, exclusion, sickness and death.

Education is the key to empowering women and girls and building equality in society by defeating the superior and dominant attitude of many men. Some wrongly believe they are entitled to treat women as inferior and unworthy of leadership roles in society, business and family.

At every level of social status, rich, middle class, poor, besides formal education, there has to be additional human rights training for boys and girls from the earliest age in human dignity and equality. Women have to be empowered economically by having skilled training and small business opportunities and thus take control over their lives. The economic power of women is essential for changing the inequality and the injustice in societies where women are treated unfairly and regulated to some lower status than males. Money talks and in community-based Grameen-loaning schemes, it is the women who are mostly given the loans. They are considered stronger, more reliable to pay back and wiser in using the loans and more caring of the needs of the children. Having money empowers the women and gives them status and respect in the community and in their families.

The education of boys and men in values to respect girls and women is vital. They must be taught that their own value and dignity as a human being and role in family and society is rooted in the respect for the dignity of females. The powerful machismo male, self-image that looks on females as objects of sexual gratification has to be replaced with one of respect, self-discipline and equal partnership, gender equality and complementary roles.

Without empowered, self-reliant and resilient women there is a greater danger of violence against women and children. The 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority says that one in every four Filipino women and children age 15-49 has experienced physical, emotional or sexual violence by their abusers or husband or partner. Female victims of child sexual abuse left untreated leaves the child traumatized, to grow up in fear of rape and sexual abuse. They can get help and fight back but some may be rendered fearful and submissive to the violence of the abusive male in later life. That is why intervention, protection, healing and empowerment therapy is so important. The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women says it is “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public and private life. Gender-based violence is any violence inflicted on women because of their sex.”

Domestic violence against women is predominantly linked to failed intimate relationships. In many cases, these are shallow and short-lived, most are based on sexual encounters and most are loveless relationships. The woman is treated, not as a loving friend and equal partner and respected mother of the children, but as an object of sexual gratification and a servant housekeeper and cook. The dominated woman is dependent on the man as the provider for her and the children. Many beaten women endure physical abuse because of fear and dependency.

The children in a family are greatly affected by the violent rages of the man against their mother. They, too, can grow up with the notion that violence is a normal part of relationships and be violent themselves. Children can suffer violent sexual assault by the mother’s partner. Sometimes the overpowered mother will allow the man to do it as a way to sexually satisfy him and calm his violent behavior against her. About 80 percent or 32 million children suffer from violence. Seven million of these children are between the ages of 10 to 18 and are sexually abused every year.Twenty percent or 1.4 million are under six years old.

Domestic violence is physical and sometimes psychological. Arguments and verbal abuse break out constantly, leading to a broken home and child abuse. One of many examples is the family of five-year old Vangie and eight-year old Maria (not real names). Their parents had severe disagreements and violence occurred. Their mother left the children with their paternal grandmother and the father. She found another partner. After only a few months, the two small girls were set upon by the biological father and he constantly sexually abused them and raped them both. They were rescued by the Preda Foundation senior staff and social worker and are recovering in the Preda home. He will stand trial. The children will testify.

Human trafficking is another form of violence against women. Young women and minors are “captured” by false promises, lured to fake employment and end up in brothels as sex slaves to powerful men. Many endure physical and psychological violence and “rough sex.” They are victims of “debt bondage” threatened by pimps and traffickers to pay their debts to them or they will be jailed.

That is the case of some of the 18 young girls, four of them minors, that were lured and pressured to join a party where they were to be sexually sold to foreign sex tourists in a hotel in Baloy Beach, Olongapo City, last November 2020. But the plan leaked, and they were all rescued by the National Bureau of Investigation and city social workers and Preda Foundation social workers. The minors are recovering at the Preda home. The adult women are being helped by the government social workers.

There has to be a major change in the culture of male abuse and violence against women and an end to the political tolerance that allows it. The rule of law must prevail, respect for the well-being of every woman and child has to be upheld and we are challenged to stand with them for their rights and dignity.

View New Life at Preda: Resilience and Hope at https://youtu.be/G0fFNmHSYic

www.preda.org

November 19, 2020

Dear friends and fellow labor and human rights advocates,

Greetings of peace and solidarity!

The Labor Rights Defenders Network (LaRD-Net) aims to serve as a campaign and advocacy platform that would support and complement the initiatives of the trade union movement in asserting the right to organize, collective bargain and strike under a climate of repression and oppression. It is composed of lawyers, artists, Church people, labor rights NGOs, members of the academe and advocates whose hearts also beat for workers’ rights. The network operates under the call, “Defend Labor Rights and Uphold Human Dignity!”

Amidst the pandemic and the worst global economic crisis, the plight of the workers continue to worsen, with the implementation of a militarist lockdown, loss of thousands of jobs, intensified repression and attacks against trade union and human rights.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Philippines was once again tagged by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) as one of the Top 10 Worst Countries for Workers. ITUC’s Global Index Report noted the prevailing trend to restrict workers’ rights through violations of the right to collective bargaining, withholding the right to strike and excluding workers from unions. The report noted that trade unionists and labor rights advocates are being killed to silence them, prevent them from organizing and pushing for the welfare of the workers Meanwhile, the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) has documented 50 victims of killings among workers, unionists and labor rights defenders.