By Farah G. Decano

 

DURING the recently held seminar on human rights education held on September 12 and 13 in Iloilo City under the auspices of the Human Rights Institute (HRI), the latter proved to the participants that it does practice what it preaches.  The HRI is the education arm of the Commission on Human Rights, a constitutional body.

Human rights (HR) are entitlements inherent in people by virtue of their humanity.  They are not merely grants or privileges bestowed upon individuals by legislation. If there are laws that are enacted on this matter, these decrees are declarations and recognitions of what already exist.

Respect is one value mostly associated with human rights.  Members of a community promote and/or prevent violations of these fundamental claims when due regard for these innate claims  is made primordial.

The HRI observed respect for human rights in the details.  Throughout the seminar, halal food was served in deference to those whose religious beliefs do not allow the consumption of pork. The commission also gave importance to the pronouns by which the delegates wish to be referred to  in the course of the registration.   Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was absent because some lecturers who were admittedly members of the LGBTQ plus community were invited as speakers.

HR is not easy to teach. This was very much emphasized during the training. Aside from the fact that the concept is an abstraction, teachers of HR must provide a comfortable arena for the students to express their opinion whether or not they are inagreement with the former’s views.  It takes courage and humility for our educators to inculcate HR concepts and values because the very safe space that they bestow maybe used against them.

I remember one law professor messaging me about an intention hatched by  few of   our  students to invite a certain speaker for  the celebration of  Law Week  this September.  He was so appalled by the plan.   The proposed guest happens to be famous for disregarding HR and is on the opposite side of the political beliefs of most professors, me included.  I explained to the distraught young and idealistic professor,  “[We] must show them that, although we do not agree with their loyalties, we respect their right to academic freedom. The academic freedom for students is freedom of thought.  Our students are free to think even if the same is in opposition to ours. We should be able to demonstrate that, as professors of and practitioners of HR, we give due regard to their ideas and loyalties.”

Acknowledging the students’ rights to their own thinking, however, is not the end of our professorial duty.  I politely asked the professor to instill in them better appreciation of HR and the law so they won’t be mesmerized by any thug who have no respect for our basic rights.  We must endeavor to develop in our learners an HR perspective with an HR attitude in life.

The success of HR education in students is neither measured by how well they can recite the thirty articles contained in the UN declaration of Human Rights nor how smoothly they can regurgitate the Bill of Rights emblazoned in Article III of the 1987 constitution.  Effective education on our inherent fundamental rights cannot also be gauged by how well the students resolve theoretical case problems.

We can say that our teaching of HR is effectual if our students not only speak its concepts and values but also put into action their knowledge of the same.

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