Alvarez wants zero budget for CHR

MANILA, Philippines - Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez wants the 2018 budget for the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) scrapped so it would be forced to close shop.

He told reporters yesterday during the budget hearing of the CHR for 2018 that personally, he is for giving the agency “zero budget because it is not doing its job.”

“They are not protecting the human rights of all Filipinos. They seem to be more concerned about the human rights of criminals, not the victims. That has been my observation,” he said in Filipino.

“Every time massacres are perpetrated, these criminals, these drug addicts, the CHR executives keep quiet. It’s like Christmas for them, just like ‘Silent Night’ – they have no comment,” Alvarez stressed, reeking with sarcasm.

The Speaker also noticed that the CHR has not actually been the bastion of justice as far as policemen and soldiers are concerned, even if these security forces also have human rights just like the more than 96 million Filipinos and not just the almost four million drug addicts.

“Now, if there are incidents where somebody dies and they believe it was extrajudicial killing committed by the police, they are really noisy,” Alvarez lamented.

“Why is that so? I thought human rights are for all? Why are they selective on whom to protect and whose rights to take care of? They don’t care about the rights of the victims of these criminals.”

The Speaker said the House of Representatives could not abolish the CHR, since it is a constitutional agency.

“But we can decide to not give it any budget,” he said. – With Marvin Sy