Aquino appoints CHR chair, BuCor director
Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon. FACEBOOK PHOTO
Malacañang on Thursday announced the appointment of Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon as chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and Ricardo Rainier Cruz III as director general of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).
Also appointed as members of the commission are Karen S. Gomez Dumpit, Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana, and Leah Tandora-Armamento. Like Gascon, their terms will expire on May 5, 2022.
On the other hand, Cruz’s appointment is co-terminus with that of President Benigno Aquino III, who will step down from office in 2016.
Aquino signed their appointment documents on June 15.
Gascon replaced Loretta Ann “Etta” Rosales who ended her term last May 5.
LP officer
Gascon is the vice president for social movements of the Liberal Party. He became a member of the Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board in 2014 and was a former chairperson of the human rights monitoring committee for the Philippine government under the Joint Monitoring Committee for the Peace Process between the National Democratic Front and the Philippine Government.
He was an undersecretary for the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs and from 2010 to 2011, a board member of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.
Gascon was a student activist at the University of the Philippines where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and, later, a Bachelor of Laws. He completed his Master of Laws in International Law at St. Edmund’s College in the University of Cambridge.
When he was still an undersecretary of education, he was among the officials who resigned at the height of the “Hello Garci” scandal.
On the other hand, Cruz was the commander of the Eastern Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) from 2013 to 2014. He was assistant division commander of the 10th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army in Mindanao from 2011 to 2012.
He graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1980.
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