Solon: CHR focuses too much on police violence
New police trainees are reflected on glass at the Caloocan City Police Station in metropolitan Manila, Philippines on Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. An official on Friday ordered the relief of the Caloocan city police force in metropolitan Manila after some of its members were suspected in the gruesome killings of three teenagers and were caught by closed circuit television robbing a house. AP/Aaron Favila
MANILA, Philippines — The budget slash for the Commission on Human Rights is a reminder for the agency that they are not doing their work as mandated by the Constitution, a lawmaker said Tuesday.
House Minority Leader Eugene de Vera was among the 119 lawmakers who voted to give the CHR a measly budget of P1,000 for next year.
Justifying his vote, De Vera said that he has no problem with the CHR as long as the constitutional commission would show that they support programs of President Rodrigo Duterte, including the so-called war on drugs.
"They focus too much on the violations by police officers. That’s what I perceive to be the reason but, on my part, why I approve the slash is because they are not (investigating) all forms of human rights violations," De Vera said in an interview with ANC's Headstart.
De Vera, however, clarified that abuses perpetrated by the police should not be tolerated.
The CHR would have to be consistent on its mandate and not solely focus on government abuses, the lawmaker said.
"I know that the ones who would really perpetrate (human rights violations) are those in power too but not all people in government are only in power. Also on the other side, also private people are also in power, also the rebels are in power in their respective areas," he said.
De Vera also defended the decision of the House to grant the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples a budget of P1,000.
"We don’t want the money to put into waste. We don’t want agencies not doing their job to have this money and probably our leaders will explain that to the president," the lawmaker said.
The Minority Leader noted that there have been anomalies in the ERC, including power supply contracts entered into by Meralco.
Citing the Makabayan bloc, De Vera said that the NCIP failed in doing their job by recovering ancestral domains of indigenous peoples.
Duterte earlier suggested using the budget slashed from the CHR for body cameras of policemen conducting anti-illegal drugs operations.
“It’s about 600 million, and it can buy it all – place cameras on them 24 hours a day… These are state-of-the-art and are just as big as clothing buttons,” Duterte said in a speech delivered in Davao City last Saturday.
On the other hand, several senators including Bam Aquino, Francis Escudero, Panfilo Lacson, JV Ejercito and Francis Pangilinan questioned the decision of the lower house and vowed to restore the CHR's budget.
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