Photo: Group photo of the Social Action Center at Caritas Philippines
In the last week of January, Finance Manager Eva Sofer-Schreibreithner and Programme Coordinator Ulrike Bey travelled to the Philippines for a project orientation of a newly funded project Social Action for Championing Human Rights in the Philippines funded by the European Union.
The project aims to support human rights defenders in the Philippines working in critical areas such as child rights, indigenous rights, and environmental rights, as well as broader issues of human rights and democracy. This will be achieved by establishing structures and programmes in 30 arch/dioceses that actively promote and advocate for the respect of Human Rights in the Philippines and protect human rights defenders.
Since 2016, the Philippines has faced widespread human rights violations, particularly under President Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, which led to thousands of deaths. Despite a change in leadership with President Marcos Jr. in 2022, repression continous, including red-tagging, extrajudicial killings, and political persecution. In the predominantly Catholic Philippines, the Catholic Church had previously only been sporadically involved in documenting and addressing human rights violations. However, in recent years, it has emerged as a credible and critical actor in the field of human rights. In response, a national Justice and Peace Program was designed with 30 dioceses, led by CBCP Caritas Philippines Foundation Inc. and horizont3000, aiming to promote awareness, legal support, and advocacy for vulnerable communities.
After meeting Caritas with the project team at their office in Manila, we travelled to the Caritas Philippines conference centre in Tagaytay, where more than 60 representatives from the varous dioceses participating in the project had gathered. They will now go back to their dioceses and work on setting up structures for justice and peace desks in their Social Action Centres.
We are proud to partner with the Caritas Philippines in such an important project.
