DR. JUNE Caridad Pagaduan-Lopez reached another milestone in her long and distinguished career.
On October 25, the United Nations elected the well-renowned Filipina doctor to its Sub-committee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT).
She was elected during the fourth meeting of Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), the Philippine Information Agency announced.
As a member of the 12-member UN Subcommittee, Pagaduan-Lopez, a professor at the Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine in University of the Philippines-Manila, would be part of the delegation responsible for monitoring areas around the world where there is a “deprivation of liberty.”
“During its visits, the SPT examines conditions of individuals’ daily lives in places of detention, legislative and institutional frameworks, and other areas that may be related to the prevention of torture and ill-treatment,” according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights.
Pagaduan-Lopez will start a four-year term, beginning January 1, 2013.
For Pagaduan-Lopez, joining the UN SPT now bring her work to worldwide attention. She has three decades worth of experience in the rehabilitation of torture survivors and has conducted trainings both in the Philippines and abroad on the detection, management and rehabilitation of torture victims and other survivors of political violence.
Pagaduan-Lopez is a founder of the Medical Action Group (MAG) in the Philippines, an organization that provides health care, and promotes and defends the human rights of all peoples.
She is also a founding member of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims where she served as a member of the board and regional vice-president for Asia.
In a statement, MAG officials congratulated Lopez.
“This will considerably strengthen the mandate of the SPT in torture prevention, particularly in the field of mental health rehabilitation of torture survivors and their families,” MAG officials said.
Activist from the start
For the past three decades, Pagaduan-Lopez has fought for women’s rights human rights, and specializes in the rehabilitation of torture victims in the Philippines.
The 61-year-old Pagaduan-Lopez comes from a long line of Human Rights activists. In the 19th century, her grandfather was a member of the Katipunan, the revolutionary movement against Spain. Her mother fought for the right for women to vote in the Philippines. Her five sisters are all committed feminists activists, according to a bio written by 1000peacewomen.org.
Though she was committed to women’s issues growing up, it wasn’t until she was at the University of the Philippines when she became a full-fledged activists. UP, she said, “educated and radicalized” her.
“I was a student activist long before the Martial Law period, mainly from exposure to events at the University of the Philippines as a member of the Student Council,” Pagaduan-Lopez told the website.
“I witnessed the death of two fellow students, one the brother of a good friend who was shot by a crazed math professor angry at the anti-Marcos protest going on in the campus,” she added.
“Then I was also in a march where another student had his brains blown out by a pillbox thrown by hired saboteurs of the Marcos military.”
After graduating from UP Medical School, she along with several like-minded physicians founded MAG, an organization that provided medical and psycho-social support to victims of human rights abuses of the Marcos regime.
She also founded several anti-torture organizations, including Philippine Action Against Torture, Balik-Kalipay in Mindanao, and the International Council for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims.
Pagaduan-Lopez documented a majority of the torture survivors, who are claimants in a class suit against the Marcos Estate, the website added.
Throughout her career, she has also traveled and performed trainings on recognizing, care and the rehabilitation of torture victims across Asia.
As a professor at UP, she created a 10-hour Human Rights Course for Medical Students — the only one of its kind.
Awards
Because of her work advocating for women and human rights, several local and worldwide organizations have commended her.
Pagaduan-Lopez has been awarded as one of the Ten Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS) in 1989.
In 2010, she received the Inge Genefke Award, which is given to a person for her/his outstanding work in the global fight against torture.
In 2011, University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA), honored her as one of the 39 recipients of the Most Distinguished Alumnus Award.
(balikbayanmag.com)
(LA Weekend November 3-6, 2012 Sec. A pg.10)
