Laws related to human rights need a set of institutions in order to be realized; and institutions need people with strong political will. Human rights laws are not self-enforcing. At the heart of enforcing laws, including human rights law, is force. Duterte’s presidency has lifted the fig leaf of that political reality and made us see the dirty job needed to be done in order to make human rights work and to maintain the order that sustains it. But political realists like me know very well that order is a dirty business; and without doing the dirty job to keep order, no human rights law could ever be realized.

Source: Manila Times July 26, 2017 16:07 UTC