MANILA, Philippines -- Election lawyer Leila De Lima took her oath Thursday as the new chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights before Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

De Lima, who will serve for seven years, said she will push for prosecutorial power for the CHR.

Currently, the CHR only recommends who should be held liable for violating human rights.

However, she is still undecided on whether to support the Human Security Act (HSA) despite the fact it grants the CHR the power to prosecute.

"You know, there are objectionable provisions in the HSA. So we still have to study [whether to support the law]," De Lima said.

She also pointed that the CHR should be the repository of all statistics on human rights.

De Lima took note of the inconsistency of the statistics provided by the human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) as well as the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) Task Force Usig.

She said it is important that the real statistics, and the real human rights situation, be determined by the CHR.

De Lima represented opposition candidates during last year's elections, among them Senator Allan Peter Cayetano and defeated candidate Aquilino Pimentel III.