MARAWI CITY, Lanao del Sur, July 5 (PIA) -- Acting Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) signed on Tuesday the Muslim Mindanao Act (MMA) 228 to uphold and enhance respect for the primacy of human rights in the region.
MMA 228 is the region’s Human Rights Charter under which the newly created ARMM Human Rights Commission will operate. It covers a wide range of national and international laws pertaining to anti-torture, genocide, inhuman treatment, driscrimination against women, rights of the child, and others.
The law was passed less than a month after President Benigno Simeon Aquino III appointed 24 members of ARMM’s Regional Legislative Assembly (RLA), representing seven districts of the region’s five component provinces, as well as the women and youth sectors.
A press statement by the Bureau of Public Information quoted Hataman saying that establishing an independent human rights body in the ARMM has been long overdue, with the region’s worst experience during the martial law and even during armed clashes between government forces and enemies of the state.
Principal author of the MMA 228, Lanao del Sur Assemblyman Zia Adiong, said the regional law affirms national and international laws, including the Article III of the Philippine Constitution; Republic Act 9745, the Anti-Torture Act of 2009;Republic Act 9851, the Philippine Act On Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity; Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976); Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984); Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1979); Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989); and all other international instruments on human rights to which the Philippines is a signatory.
RLA Speaker Rasol Mitmug Jr. said MMA 228 becomes the country’s first operational charter of an independent human rights body that is passed into law by a legislative body. The charter of the national government’s Commission on Human Rights was created by an executive order issued in 1986 by then President Corazon C. Aquino.
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