First of all, I must say not a lot of law students enjoy taking up Human Rights courses in law school.

But for me, it got me excited and it had broaden my knowledge of what Human Rights is all about. This course has taught a lot of concepts particularly about the human rights violations committed by these particular individuals like government officials, military personnel and other governmental authorities. This course had broaden my knowledge about the torture and other inhume treatment's towards the Flipino's during the Marcos regime. It helped me realized that most of the people during the 21th century had become ignorant towards the Marcos regime and encourages Marcos government into power when in fact they should be more cautious in electing Marcos people and ousting them to political seats as we have all know, Marcos is considered the biggest violators of human rights during the 70's-80's in the Philippines. It opened my eyes and broaden my knowledge about the Anti-Torture Act provided in the International Convention on Human Rights and it showed me that people in governmental post and positions are the people most prone to committing these atrocities towards the poor, helpless and the oppressed. Up to this present day, It is so hard to imagine that our present government has failed to give justice to the Martial Law victims. Yes they have created a law to provide, compensate and to assist them but for me as I have already stated in class, the law is long overdue. It makes think that the government has really no desire to combat these atrocities but only to see to it that they opted to make the people forget what happened during those times. As we have further discussed human rights class we also tackled what happened in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge was far worse than the Marcos dictatorship. I think as Filipinos, we should consider ourselves already lucky that at least in some point we had the better of the worst atrocities than Cambodia. Yes both happened during bad times but if we compare it to the Khmer Rouge, I'd rather choose being in the Martial Law regime. I have always been fascinated with human rights advocates when I was a kid that I kept saying to myself what I become one of them. These advocates had always been a big inspiration to people, they encourage and give hope by providing mostly free legal services towards victims of human rights. Up to the present , various laws have been created for the purpose of exterminating or at the very least minimizing these acts to prevent government officials in torturing human victims as even if we have these laws there is no doubt that we can never guarantee 100 % that these atrocities from happening. But It doesn't mean that we should shy away from these problems. Instead let us all try to be a symbol for hope and inspiration for these people's who have sacrificed their lives for us. Not all victims of these human rights violators are saint's. But as God would say in the Catholic Church, everybody should be treated equally and with compassion regardless whether or not he/she is a criminal. I really enjoyed this class and always look forward to it every mondays and wednesdays. I would have opted that this course was given to us during our regular semestral time because summer classes for Human rights is I believe is very short for me. I wanted to learn a lot more from this class. Maybe other countries that have also violated human rights.I will truly miss this class and the professor. I must say that this class taught me to critically speak my mind and to virtually share it in class in a very strong and sympathetic manner. I have always expressed my strong interest on becoming a Human

Rights lawyer someday. It has always been in my utmost concern to help these victims as I know even only one person like myself can make a big difference in this world.