Petition to expedite selection of Philippine representatives to the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC)

H.E. Benigno Simeon C. Aquino Jr.
President
Republic of the Philippines


Dear President Aquino,

We are representatives of organizations and institutions promoting the rights and welfare of marginalized Filipino women and children. We seek and advocate for the recognition, promotion and protection of the human rights of women and children as an integral measure to adddress the plight and uplift the status of women and children.

We reiterate our appreciation for the establishment of the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) in April this year. While we find the mandate of the ACWC as identified in its approved Terms of Reference still wanting, we express our continued interest and commitment to encourage the ACWC to realize its role as a specialized regional body for the protectiona and promotion of the rights of women and children in Southeast Asia.

Given the gravity and multitude of violations of the economic, political and sociocultural rights of women in the region, we believe that the ACWC could help in the monitoring and truthful implementation of national and international standards embodied in various international human rights mechanisms, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which all ten member states of the ASEAN, including the Philippines, have ratified.

We further believe that the establishment of the ACWC, through the mandate and functions of coutnry representatives, would complement the work done by national governments, as well as social movements and civil society organizations, in introducing specific reforms concerning the protection and promotion of the rights of women and children and in making governments more responsive to specific situations and needs of women and children.

We thus stress that a fundamental element in realizing the functions of the ACWC is the selection and appointment of country representatives to this body, and we express serious concern that of the ten member states of the ASEAN, only the Philippines has not yet apppointed its two representatives to the ACWC.

We particularly call your attention to the fact that since June, when the call for nomination for the Philippine Womens Rights Representative to the ACWC initiated by the Philippine Commission on Women closed, the selection process for Philippine women and children representatives has been held in abeyance without any further development.

We further express concern that any form of abeyance in the selection process for Philippine representatives consequently impedes not only on the formal participation of the Philippines to ongoing ACWC processes, but also on the representation of the interests of Filipino women to the ACWC and the ASEAN.

In this regard, we urge you to act in your capacity as Chief Executive and ensure that relevant government bodies proceed and resume the conduct of the selection process.

We finally urge you to expedite the appointment of Philippine representatives to the ACWC based on qualifications of independence, commitment to human rights and competence in the field of womens human rights and childrens rights.


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Petition initiators:

Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women
GABRIELA National Alliance of Women in the Philippines
Migrante International
Association for the Rights of Children in South East Asia (ARCSEA)