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Issue Number 25/26, December
2005
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 25/26, December 2005
FILIPINO HUMAN
RIGHTS LEADER TOURS NZ
And Puts The Philippines Back On The Radar
- Murray Horton
In October 2004, PSNA
hosted Marie Hilao-Enriquez, the General Secretary of
KARAPATAN (the Alliance for the Advancement of
People’s Rights), on a fortnight–long national
speaking tour. The speech that she presented in seven
cities, from Dunedin to Whangarei, appears elsewhere in
this issue. Marie’s CV makes fascinating reading in
itself and can be read in Kapatiran 24, August 2004,
online at
http://www.converge.org.nz/psna/KapNo24/kap24art/art107.htm.
Marie was the fourth leading figure from the Philippine
progressive movement that we have toured through New
Zealand, the others being Leonor Briones (1995), Crispin
Beltran (1999) and Emilia Dapulang (2002). But she was
the first leader of the human rights movement that we
have hosted, so her tour represented something of a leap
in the dark for us. Both Emilia and Ka Bel (as Beltran is
universally known) were leading trade unionists and were
strongly supported by their New Zealand counterparts.
Leonor toured the country on the issue of foreign debt
and garnered strong support from groups ranging from
churches to one particular political party (the
Democrats). But we weren’t sure of the New Zealand
context for Marie’s tour, there is not a strong
human rights movement here, and the Philippines had long
since slipped below the radar of the broader NZ
progressive movement.
Visiting Ahmed Zaoui In Prison
So, unions were not involved in Marie’s tour
(although individual unionists certainly were, but in
their individual capacity) and there was limited response
from such human rights groups as there are in this
country. I must publicly record my disappointment that
Amnesty International NZ did not respond to any single
communication we sent them. I don’t mean just
appeals for money, I mean anything. They ignored us, and
Marie’s tour, entirely. It is not for me to
speculate on why that might have been, But on the
positive side, she was invited to speak to the Human
Rights Network (in Auckland), which played a leading role
in the campaign to free Ahmed Zaoui (wearing my hat as
Editor of the Anti-Bases Campaign’s Peace
Researcher, I refer you to recent issues of the online PR
at www.converge.org.nz/abc as a good source of
information about the Zaoui case). An absolute highlight
of her tour was when she went into Auckland Central
Remand Prison to visit Zaoui, who was then nearing the
end of his disgraceful two years’ imprisonment
without charge or trial. This was the first time that
Marie had been into a prison other than in the
Philippines, and she found it a fascinating experience.
She was eager to make the point that nice, white, liberal
First World countries like New Zealand also hold
political prisoners, and she saw Zaoui’s treatment
as a possible ominous precedent for what could await Joma
Sison, the Philippines’ best-known Communist, who
has been classified as a “foreign terrorist” in
his Dutch exile and who is the subject of an
international campaign to remove that unwarranted
designation (with all the potentially fatal implications
it carries in the world after September 11). Plus, in a
first for any of our visiting Filipino speakers, she was
invited to speak to a Government body, namely the Human
Rights Commission, in Christchurch.
Past tours have been made possible, both financially and
logistically, by organisations such as unions and
churches. But with Marie’s tour, organisations
played a secondary role to individuals. That was some
organisational funding – and I want to single out
Christian World Service and Caritas for particular thanks
– but it wouldn’t have happened without
individuals reaching deeply into their pockets and giving
generously of their time. The biggest single donation
($1,000) came from somebody unknown to us and not even a
PSNA member. Other individuals donated hundreds each. As
with all of our tours, we put together a disparate
network to organise Marie’s visit to each of the
seven cities she went to (one less than our last tour, as
we couldn’t find anyone to organise in Hamilton for
us). There was some organisational involvement, for
example from the Greens in Dunedin, but primarily we put
together a coalition of individuals from widely differing
backgrounds. We had worked with some, but by no means all
of them on previous tours. Marie stayed with people
ranging from an MP to unionists and community workers (as
with our previous tours, all accommodation was in private
homes. Our visiting speakers find that to be part of the
unique charm of touring New Zealand, namely that they can
meet people in their own homes).
For the first time since 1995 (when I toured with Leonor
Briones), I accompanied a Filipino speaker. Not that
Marie needed anyone to hold her hand – PSNA decided
it would be in our interests to send someone with her
(for instance, to raise our profile and hopefully pick up
some new members, which we did) and also to act as a road
manager for her. She appreciated the latter, meaning that
she could concentrate solely on speaking and not have to
worry about the logistics of touring a strange country.
Also, there is a unique family connection to Marie that
didn’t apply to any of our three previous speakers
– she is one of the numerous maternal aunts of my
wife, Becky. So we decided that family needed a bit of
extra special treatment. I had to remind myself not to
introduce her on every occasion as Aunty Marie
(she’s actually a couple of years younger then me).
And I must say that she was an absolute pleasure as a
travelling companion. Despite spending a couple of weeks
in each other’s company nearly all the time, we
never had a harsh word for each other (no mean feat, I
might say). In fact we had a lot of fun.
Media Coverage
So, how did Marie’s tour compare to the previous
ones? Well, in some respects it fell short. We
didn’t manage to get her into any mainstream
newspapers at all. And, overall, I think the numbers
attending her meetings were probably down (averaged out
across the country). It was noticeably harder to drum up
interest in her visit in some places (e.g. Dion Martin,
our Palmerston North organiser, commented that this was
the first time that he couldn’t succeed in getting
any media coverage for a visiting speaker nor arrange
anything else for her except a public meeting). I’ve
already touched on the reasons why – the Philippines
is off the radar of the NZ progressive movement, let
alone the media and the public. And there was no natural
constituency into which we could slot Marie – by
comparison, the trade unionists, Ka Bel and Emilia, had
lots of workplace and union office visits. When I say
that we couldn’t get her into any mainstream papers,
she was actually interviewed by more than one (in Dunedin
and Nelson) but they published nothing. In the case of
Nelson, that was a blessing in disguise because the young
student reporter they assigned to interview her was
possibly the New Zealander most ignorant of all things
Filipino that I’d ever encountered (she’d never
heard of Imelda Marcos and her shoes, for God’s
sake. I assumed that was the one thing all Kiwis knew
about the Philippines).
But in other respects, her media coverage was fantastic.
She did a lot of radio interviews, ranging from iwi
stations to a national Maori network and various
commercial stations. And the best coverage she got (an
absolute coup) was getting a 30 minute live and
nationwide interview with Linda Clark on the
latter’s top rating Radio New Zealand national
programme, Nine To Noon With Linda Clark. The producer
told me that it is listened to by 250,000 people
throughout the country, a respectable percentage of the
total population. Clark was both interested and informed
about the Philippines. Marie went on 15 minutes late, so
I assumed that they would cut her slot to 15 minutes.
But, no, Clark kept her talking for the full promised 30
minutes. She was fascinated by Marie’s account of
what it was like to actually conceive, give birth to, and
look after her oldest daughter whilst she was in prison
as a political prisoner. As I listened to this, I thought
this is fascinating personal stuff, the kind of
individual story that Kiwis relate so very well to, but
that it was old, Marcos-era stuff. But Clark didn’t
let us down, concluding by bringing Marie right back to
the present to talk about the impact of the American-led
“War On Terror” on the Philippines. Marie was
the second of our visiting speakers that we’ve got
onto Linda Clark’s show (Emilia Dapulang was the
first) and it provides priceless national exposure that
completely trumps provincial newspaper interviews (or the
lack thereof), let alone speaking at public meetings to
small crowds.
Nor was her media coverage merely domestic. Earlier in
2004 I had a working lunch with the Australasian Editor
of New Internationalist, the prestigious UK-based global
monthly magazine. She was making one of her flying visits
to Christchurch, the distribution centre for NI in New
Zealand. In the course of our conversation, Marie’s
forthcoming NZ tour came up, the Editor was interested,
and the outcome was a phone interview with Marie in
Manila and a full page profile of her in an issue timed
to appear just before Marie’s NZ visit. NI was happy
to include publicity flyers for Marie’s visit and
also gave us copies of the issue featuring Marie to sell
at her meetings around the country as a fundraiser for
PSNA.
And while overall numbers were down at her meetings,
compared to our previous speakers, in some cities they
were markedly up. Christchurch is the home of PSNA. In
1999, we were embarrassed at the paltry turnout for Ka
Bel’s meeting here. But Marie got an excellent crowd
for her Christchurch meetings. And the absolute highlight
for her was very much a case of leaving the best until
last. Her Whangarei meeting was unforgettable - a big
turnout from many nationalities and the only place in the
country where Filipinos turned out in numbers (primarily
women married to Kiwi men, several of whom accompanied
their wives). A meeting with a sizeable Filipino
contingent has a completely different dynamic to one
entirely made up of good stolid Kiwis. Marie’s
Whangarei meeting fizzed and sparkled. For the only time
on the tour, she was able to (partially) address the
audience in Filipino, and she excelled in answering the
no holds barred questions that’s some of her
countrywomen tossed at her (which got the audience
debating and discussing among themselves). She was
buzzing about it all the way back down to Christchurch.
A Dangerous Job
I want to record my admiration for Marie’s courage
and determination. Her health is not good, and she needs
plenty of rest while touring. She met every commitment
without complaint and always delivered 100%. And there is
nothing straightforward or routine about being a human
rights leader in the Philippines. It is dangerous, deadly
work. She has had numerous colleagues killed (the murders
tend to be horrible, not ”clean” killings, and
nobody is ever held accountable for them). It wasn’t
until she arrived in NZ, at Christchurch Airport, that we
discovered that just the previous week she had had to
secure special permission from a court to be able to
leave the Philippines. Why? Because she faced charges,
brought many months after the event, arising from an
“illegal” 2003 rally (all rallies at the
Presidential Palace are now banned and violently
dispersed). Her next court date was while she was in NZ
and she had to e-mail a letter explaining her absence.
This was the first time she’d ever been charged with
anything. She had been a political prisoner during the
Marcos martial law dictatorship but imprisoned without
charge, let alone trial.
While we were staying with our Wellington hosts, her
staff informed her that they had been harassed by masked
men in the early hours of the morning. Such attacks on
human rights offices and staff are commonplace in the
provinces, but this was in Quezon City, the “NGO
belt” of Metro Manila. Fortunately nothing came of
it. This work is not academic for Marie – she still
feels the pain from the brutal rape, torture and murder
of her sister, Liliosa, by her captors during martial
law. She was pleased that I dealt with that subject in my
introduction of her at every meeting, as she still finds
it hard to talk about, more than 30 years after the
event. Her phone interview with the Australasian Editor
of New Internationalist had to be suspended for a while
because they both started crying while talking about
that.
Sowing The Seeds
The greatest thing about Marie’s NZ tour was that it
sowed seeds throughout the country. Elsewhere in this
issue you can read copious coverage of the August 2005
International Solidarity Mission (ISM), in which four New
Zealanders took part. That arose directly out of
Marie’s tour. She contacted us and asked if New
Zealanders could join it. PSNA had not organised any
group of Kiwis to the Philippines since the national
network came to Christchurch in the early 1990s, and
normally we would give ourselves a long lead time to
undertake such a project. But we put the word out among
the contacts that we’d made during Marie’s
tour, and the response was immediate and positive (by
contrast, we regularly offer financial help for a Kiwi
trade unionist to take part in the annual May Day
activities run by the militant trade union confederation,
the KMU, and we don’t get any takers). We planned to
send one delegate (Tim Howard) but there were several
other people dead keen to go (not all of whom were
actually able to do so, for various reasons). So we
undertook some speed fundraising and were able to help
two others to go (the fourth was self-funded). Tim, who
had never been to the Philippines before, organised his
own weeks-long exposure tour throughout the length of the
country to precede the ISM. All four returned to NZ fired
up about the Philippine human right situation and have
plunged into work to raise the issue here. They’ve
had media coverage - Tim had 15-20 minutes live with
Linda Clark on Nine To Noon (the Philippines is becoming
a regular feature on that programme); Mary Ellen
O’Connor had a feature article published in the
Otago Daily Times, the very same paper that didn’t
publish its interview with Marie. All four have spoken to
meetings and conferences throughout the country, and
taken up the subject at the Government level, meeting
with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials and,
in Tim’s case, doing a phone interview with the
Chief of Staff of the Army to find out why the latter had
been visiting Mindanao (see elsewhere in this issue for
details).
So, thanks for coming Marie, it was a pleasure to host
you and, more importantly, your tour has started
something in New Zealand which will have long term
consequences. Kia kaha, your greatest achievement was in
putting the Philippines, and specifically its appalling
human rights situation (which is central to everything
else in that country), back onto the radar of the New
Zealand progressive movement for the first time in many,
many years. That’s an excellent outcome and more
than we could have hoped for.
Murray Horton is editor of Kapatiran and Secretary of
PSNA. He has visited and lived in the Philippines several
times in the 1980s and 90s.
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