28 July 2020

[…]

The problem of business-related human rights abuses has been particularly acute in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, mining, and tourism where issues of land ownership, land use, labour rights and environmental destruction are pronounced. […]

[…]

To address the problem of business-related human rights abuses in the Philippines, the United Nations has called on the Philippine government and the Philippine business community to implement the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). […]

[…]

Why has the Philippines failed to make more significant progress in implementing the UNGPs?

[…]

But the Philippines’ inability to make significant progress in implementing the UNGPs has not simply been a matter of the quality of leadership or the institutional design of key human rights institutions. It has most fundamentally been a matter of the way power is distributed and organised in the country.

The Philippines is dominated by a powerful oligarchy which has enormous wealth, significant control over the means of violence, and privileged access to political authority. […]

[…]

Even if Duterte fades from the scene, the structural obstacles to change stemming from oligarchic domination of politics and the economy mean that the Philippines is unlikely to successfully implement the UNGPs […].

In this context, one can expect that the Commission on Human Rights and its allies will achieve some notable changes in government and corporate policy and practice by continuing with its strategy of seeking to build a coalition of support for the UNGPs, promoting incorporation of the UNGPs into government laws and regulations when opportunities arise, and seeking to popularise the business and human rights agenda. […]