Lee Edson Yarcia

“Reducing the Treatment Gap” Poses Human Rights Risks

(2024)

Lisa Cosgrove, Cristian Montenegro, Lee Edson Yarcia, Gianna D’Ambrozio and Julie Hannah, Health and Human Rights Journal, June 2024, Vol 26, Number 1

Abstract:
The United Nations (UN) officially acknowledged the “global burden” of mental disorders in September 2015, when mental health was included in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In so doing, the UN identified mental health as a priority for global development. The call to “close the treatment gap” was seen as a way to both uphold the right to treatment and integrate mental health into the SDGs, with many asserting that this is a human rights-based approach to transforming mental health. Although using the SDG framework is a sensible and necessary approach to catalyze action on mental health, the integration of mental health into the SDGs has sparked debates about the relevance and role of human rights frameworks in this area. For example, the latest draft resolution on mental health and sustainable development, presented by Mexico to the UN General Assembly, has been met with renewed calls to avoid the psychiatrization of the SDGs. Psychiatrization, in this context, points to the process by which “psychiatric institutions, knowledge, and practices affect an increasing number of people, shape more and more areas of life, and further psychiatry’s importance in society as a whole.” Concerns about psychiatrization stem from the fact that the focus is predominantly on scaling up the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, without paying attention to how a biomedical approach is limited in addressing the environmental, social, economic, and political determinants of mental health. Further, the emphasis on “closing the treatment gap” selectively deploys human rights in order to promote increased access to Western biomedical treatments. In so doing, there is a risk that the foundational principles of interdependence and indivisibility of international human rights will not be brought to fruition. What is needed is a holistic, rights-based approach that focuses not only on the clinical or individual interventions and outcomes but also on the process and contexts of implementation. That is why it is critical to ask “what type of evidence is valued (and devalued).” Thus, any discussions about the meaning and logistics of including global mental health as a priority for global development must include the voices of those most affected. Read more …

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The politics of drug rehabilitation in the Philippines

Lasco, G., & Yarcia, L. E. (2022). Health and Human Rights, 24(1), 147

Abstract:
The international consensus to end compulsory drug treatments and close forced rehabilitation facilities needs urgent transformation to country policies. In the Philippines, as with other countries in Asia, rehabilitation can be compulsory and is seen as the humane alternative to the “war on drugs.” In this paper, we present the landscape of rehabilitation and narrate the ways in which people who use drugs are forced to undergo treatment. We unpack the politics behind rehabilitation and explain the sociocultural foundations that support compulsory treatment. We argue that a transition to a human rights-based approach, including voluntary alternatives in community settings, is possible by capitalizing on the reforms that are, unwittingly, the result of the “war on drugs.” Read more …

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Articulating key obligations of states to persons deprived of liberty under a right to health framework: the Philippine case study

(August 2021)

Yarcia, L. E., & Bernadas, J. M. A. C. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 240-253

Abstract:
This paper aims to examine key obligations of states to persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) under the right to health framework in the context of COVID-19. As a case study, it also describes the state of health in places of detention in the Philippines during the pandemic, with an end view of providing granular recommendations for prison policy reforms. Read more …

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It’s time to decriminalize drug use: Insights from the legal history of prohibition in the Philippines

(2021)

Yarcia, L.E. in Drugs and Philippine Society, (Lasco ed.), Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Abstract:
Drugs and Philippine Society is a collection of critical essays that look at drug use, drug wars, and drug policies in the Philippines from different angles, from the perspectives of scholars, social and cultural workers, artists and activists present and past. In doing so, it seeks to uncover societal prejudices about a long- misunderstood subject—and unmask the many contexts of how drugs are used and misused in the country. Read more …

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Queer identity and gender-related rights in post-colonial Philippines

(2019)

Yarcia, L.E., et al. (2019).. Aust. J. of Asian Law Vol 20 No 1, Article 19: 265-275

The Philippines is at a critical historical point where LGBT identities and rights are being questioned, not in a manner of interrogation which aims to deconstruct and understand, but in a method that is often offensive and misinformed. This paper describes the Filipino queer identities in the past three decades and the struggle to attain equality in rights through legislative advocacy. The authors trace the development of Filipino queer identities from the pre-colonial period where non-binary genders were accepted if not revered, and argue that the ensuing colonial influences shaped the present state of intolerance LGBTs face today. The civil code tradition and Catholicism from the Spaniards have been fundamental forces in restricting legal gender recognition to a binary framework. A rights-based approach to advocacy, coupled with extra-legal approaches in the cultural sphere, remains a strong and needed strategy in the fight for gender equality and inclusion. Read more …

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Kalusugan sa kulungan: Examining the policy for people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C in Philippine prisons

(May 2018)

Yarcia, L.E.

Abstract:
Following the government’s ongoing ‘war on drugs’, law enforcement operations increased, leading to a rapid rise in the numbers of people held in detention and prison facilities. This, in turn, worsened already poor prison conditions in the Philippines. Official government data revealed a 511% congestion rate in Philippine jails and current trends show a surge in jail population attributable to ‘the increase in the number of drug-related cases’. Read more …

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The public welfare dimension of the competition clauses: An exposition and application of the proper constitutional treatment for industries with adverse public health impacts

(2016)

Nadate, A. C. B., Yarcia, L. E. P., Guiang, A. J. B., Magtibay, M., & Lia Karen, S. (2016). Phil. LJ, 90, 797

Abstract:
This article presents a systematic exposition of the competition clauses under Section 19, Article X11 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, as well as adjunct antitrust provisions under paragraph 2, Section 1, Article XIl and Section 11 (1), Article XVI. The analysis ultimately reframes the competition clauses as a cognate of (1) procompetition policy as commonly articulated in restraint of trade jurisprudence and (2) the public welfare. Read more …

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