In a statement Sunday, Gen. Gilbert Gapay, AFP chief of staff, assured the public that the military “will stand up for human rights and continue to stand by its principles, even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic” in the performance of their mandate as protector of the people and the State.
The same commitment was stressed by Col. Joel Alejandro Nacnac, chief of the AFP Human Rights Office, during the online 2020 Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Summit last Friday. “The AFP shall continue to adhere to human rights, IHL, and the rule of law. As participants of this summit, we are expected to guard these rights in our communities and areas of responsibility. We have to study further the different laws so that all of us will be equipped and capacitated to act as human rights officers,” Nacnac told the participants.
Among the speakers were lawyer Francis Tom Temprosa, director of the Commission on Human Rights Human Rights Education and Promotion Office; Rosemarie Trajano, secretary general of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates; Ricardo Lucero Jr. of the International Committee of the Red Cross; and lawyer Randy Escolango, deputy commissioner of the Insurance Commission.