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The head
of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in
the Philippines said rosy figures on Philippine economic
growth do not trickle down to Filipinos suffering from
extreme poverty, and only widened disparity among
people.
Nileema
Noble, resident representative of the UNDP in the
Philippines, said both the Global Report on the
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the Philippine
Midterm MDG progress report launched last week revealed
significant progress in halving the proportion of people
who live on $1 a day.
“In
addressing other MDG goals, what is also clear is that
the gains in reducing extreme poverty have been
accompanied by rising inequality… the benefits of growth
have not been equally shared. The deprivation that
characterizes the daily lives of fellow citizens will
most certainly compromise our shared future,” said Noble
in her speech at the opening on Monday of the regional
workshop on strengthening human- rights mechanisms.
The
three-day forum organized by the UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights seeks to help governments
in the region in establishing national human-rights
institutions as well as strengthening the functions of
existing ones.
Chairman
Purificacion Quisumbing of the Commission on Human
Rights in the Philippines, meanwhile, noted the
importance of the establishment of national human-
rights institutions in Asia to help governments address
human rights in transborder dimensions. She said common
human-rights concerns in Asia include suppression of
terrorism while respecting human rights; human-rights
aspects of trafficking in persons; protection of the
human rights of migrants and migrant workers;
implementation of economic, social and cultural rights;
and right to development and the enhancement of
human-rights education.
“Asia is
the biggest and most culturally diverse region in the
world. [But] it is the only region that does not have a
regional human-rights mechanism,” Quisumbing lamented.
Member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (Asean) will sign the historic Asean charter in
Singapore next month. The charter seeks to establish a
human-rights council that would cover human-rights
violations cases in all the member-countries. |
