Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Update: Senate approved on its second reading the Philippine accession to OPCAT

The senate today (February 8, 2012) approved on its second reading the Philippine accession to OPCAT. The process took only a few minutes as there was no objection or any further comment from the senators at all. The Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Relations said that the final reading is set to take place on Tuesday, February 14. We need at least 16 senators (2/3 of the entire senate) to finally approve the accession. We are almost there.

Members of UATC and PAHRA joined the delegation. Representatives from PAHRA, Balay, MAG, TFDP, FIND, AFAD were there. A representative from the ICRC was also there as another resolution pertaining to the Geneva Conventions was also approved by the senate.

We thank everyone who have been part of our advocacy efforts since we started with the OPCAT ratification campaign several years ago with the support of RCT and APT, and other partners like the IRCT, among others. We are almost there in our campaign. We’ll send another delegation to the senate next week. Let’s hope for the best.

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