The fractured mirror of promised justice in the Philippines, parallel to the politicization of human rights

By Ayesha Isla Jalandoni Cope

(This piece was originally submitted as a term paper for the author’s Fundamentals in Political Science class under the Political Science program of the University of San Agustin.)

Promises aren’t supposed to be broken – or have they already been planned to be broken in the first place? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes a simple promise: we are all born free, equal, and deserving of our inherent dignity. Imagine it as a sacred mirror that reflects the highest moral ceiling, a mirror that is not merely fractured but is shattered before our very eyes. That reflection is distorted by political power and clouded by systematic institutional bias that crawls from the past and brings a burden to the present. The human rights in the Philippine archipelago have derailed three persistent patterns that I can see clearly as undermining the very soul of justice for the Filipino people, the preference for selective treatment, the convenience of double standards, and the deliberate use of confrontation to silence pain.

Today, we dive into the reality of the politicization of Human Rights as it uses words to grip the justice system to serve a swelling interest. This essay delves into a pattern that citizens have traced, revealing a paradox where power is used as a shield while isolating and breaking the backs of the marginalized people. Welcome to the country that reflects inequality and distorts reality, the Philippines.

“The people do not complain because they have no voice and you say that they do not suffer because you have not seen their hearts bleed.” – Jose Rizal

The core principle of human rights, as we are taught in school, is universality. It is the notion that the rights of every single citizen, regardless of age, nationality, race, color, economic rank, or identity as a whole, are sacred. Yet, what we see in the Philippines is a betraying portrayal of the selective application of the state’s system. Let’s not forget how this system, state resources, the police, the courts, and the prosecutors, are not as innocent as labelled to be; neutrality is not their instrument in finding the truth, but instead they are the instruments used by political will and mobilized to act differently in different degrees that depend solely on the identity of the victim and the rank of the alleged perpetrator. Would that be considered as Universality, or is that an illusion of the fractured mirror?

This distinct mobilization is a masterpiece of contract that is cruel in nature. Ever notice how when a local politician or someone higher up, such as a prominent, well-connected figure, falls, the nation’s justice system roars to life? Still, when a mistake unravels, the justice system turns a blind eye and a hungry palm for money to silence them? Specific task forces are almost immediately deployed, political pressure is assured, guaranteed urgency, and the crime is treated as an offense to the state itself. This is the hasty application of the right to justice, but the passions of urgency suddenly vanish, dissolving into silence for the hundreds or not but thousands of nameless victims of the “War on Drugs.” The countless lives taken were taken as not a life but as a statistic on a news headline, their families taken in a state of devastating grief. In this thought, you would suggest that an investigation is conducted, but I stand firm and say that the investigation is a myth, prosecution is an inconsistency, and closure is an impossibility. Two types of citizens are painfully exposed in these situations: those people whose right to life is protected, and those whose existence is considered disposable, as the screams of their restless souls echo in the void of judicial abandonment.

The second extreme manifestation is the war that was waged between Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the hungry appetite of the large-scale developments that feast on their land. The universal right to culture, to ancestral land, the sacred ground where the years of human research formed history, and where the future of the people resides, is often treated as an unimportant inconvenience while paving the way for personal interests. Not only the government but also powerful corporations have consistently prioritized short-term, economic development that caters to percentage gains rather than long-term projects that are rooted in the ancestral rights of the Indigenous People.

Finally, I observed how in the recent protests and rallies that have been a voice for the poor and a stand for the mistreated, there was selective enforcement of the right to peaceful assembly. According to Saadet Gokce (2025), One person was killed, 216 others, including 89 minors, were arrested, while over 90 police officers were injured during protests held on Sunday against corruption in the Philippines’ capital Manila. Indeed, a bitter pill of truth to swallow. When the tired, the hungry, and opposition take to the streets, they are met with the presence of shields and the full weight of the country’s security forces. However, in contrast, similar to the public gathering in support of the existing administration are allowed to proceed untouched and uninterrupted, showing how the very breath of democratic freedom is not a right but a privilege, failed to be seen for its true reflection and non-existing promises.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – John F. Kennedy

So, if selective treatment determines who gets justice, the next practice, double standards, dictates the soul of the law applied. It involved fabricating a system where the law is being used as a razor for political opponents and a blanket for immunity for allies. No one is above the law – unless you are the one imposing it, apparently. (Datu Zahir Madetar & Kennlee Orola, 2020). This is what many of us call a deliberate architecture of bias that goes against the very principle and existence of the rule of law.

Nothing screams louder than the odd treatment of government critics versus the government enforcers. For example, the detention of Former Senator Leila de Lima, ultimately, I’d say a fierce critic of the drug war’s bloodshed that has taken the lives of the innocent and the poor. Based on an article by Human Rights Watch (2017), The Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) castigated the Philippines’ legal justification for de Lima’s February arrest on politically motivated drug trafficking charges, saying “there is serious reason to believe that she is targeted due to her outspoken criticism of the impact of the current government’s policies on human rights in the Philippines.” There were charges pushed that were deemed baseless and said to be “politically motivated,” which serves as a chilling warning to begin with. The inspection she faced was maximalist, and the process ended up being a corrective, slow political execution.

In a racking opposition, the accountability process for state actors at that time was implicated in the drug war, where she criticized high-ranking police officials. It’s something that you can call the core of double standards, which includes the law’s maximum harshness as a crushing hammer that is being built against opposition, while a minimum and often non-existent standard of accountability is applied, and then again a shield of institutional immunity for those whose sword-wielding state power.

Not only that but take a look at the powerful dimension of two-tiered nature of judicial privileges, such as bail and temporary release, for the majority of citizens, the poor, marginalized, citizens and folks accused of petty crimes that aren’t even driven by greed but by hunger, bail is an unaffordable dream they so ought to grab and judicial mercy lies as a mere cold word with no action. According to Respicio & Co. (2024),  The right to bail is a fundamental aspect of the Philippine criminal justice system, designed to balance the presumption of innocence with the need to ensure the accused’s appearance at trial. Given this, shouldn’t normal citizens be given the opportunity as well? Those people rot in overcrowded prisons where the Philippines has once again failed to take proper action and yet they forget that this issue exists. It is not a reflection of hope and justice, but an illusion of how they want this world to see them. Yet, here come certain political figures, even those whose crimes are supposed to be grave, non-bailable capital offenses, who seem to encompass a hidden private privilege pass, invoking humanitarian grounds that secure freedom for them but deny it to the thousands of Filipinos. A metaphor that turns to reality, the color of your money, not the seriousness of your crime, determines one’s liberty.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

The last and final devastating pattern is the state’s refusal to have constructive criticism, replacing dialogue with intimidation. When officials and government representatives are faced with a stained truth of human rights violations, don’t you notice how their response is never an internal review but rather a heavy accusation of treason and an “attack” on national pride? This nearly ensured that the necessary space that is needed for reform is almost instantly taken away.

Have you gotten the idea yet? If you thought of red-tagging, you are correct. It is the primary weapon that is being used as a way to put down the truth. In the Philippines, government officials, military personnel, and law enforcement agencies have engaged in the practice of red-tagging (or red-baiting) by deliberately labeling human rights lawyers, judges, civil organization leaders, union & student leaders, journalists, political leaders, publishers, and activists as “terrorists” or “communists” (Sarthak Gupta, 2024) I would say that this tactic is not about law but rather a political branding tool that shapes reality into a distorted figure from the voices of the weak. The concept of labeling critics, such as journalists, academics, priests, and activists, as communists or terrorists, gives the state itself power and motive to destroy their social and potential physical annihilation, which is not as uncommon as most think. As a former journalist myself, I am somehow threatened whenever I start to speak my mind, scared to mention what I see, as it may lead to my last word being spoken. Red-tagging would destroy the critic’s credibility and would shift the narrative from the government’s abuse to the critic’s newly formed label and replace debate as a way to prove sides into a life-threatening, paralyzing fear.

The pursuit of human rights here in the Philippines is a story that shifts the hero into the villain. Just like Maleficent, we are labelled differently when our voices carry a heavy truth to the table. It is not just any narrative but a reality that has carried the tears and silent struggles of its people. The three systematic patterns of selective treatment, double standards, and confrontational engagement have built a chilling barrier that is brought against justice. Thus, we can say that this is not just a failure of legal procedures, but it is a profound moral crisis wherein the country has allowed law to be a shield for the powerful and a weapon against the powerless. This is a deliberately punishing factor against the defenseless.

As the new generation of future law-makers and leaders, the task ahead would not just demand the legal reforms, but it would cover the act that is a collective moral courage many are scared to use. We must demand the destruction of the architecture of bias for investigation to be driven by the pillar of truth, just like the lady of justice, and not the paid calculations of political survival. The law applies equally to the local officers to the highest-ranking officials, and criticisms should not be eliminated but should be welcomed as a necessary dialogue for a healthy nation. Only when suffering Filipino citizens hold the same weight as the discomfort of the powerful can the shattered mirror of justice of the Philippines begin to reflect the ideal of a truly free and dignified Philippines we sought to have.

To end, here is a quote that I find helpful during this time of uncertainty in our country. May this serve as not only an inspiration but a call to justice. For the people, the country, and the world.

“Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.” – Thurgood Marshall