CHR asks Congress for P5-M intel funds

AP file photo

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) wants to raise its intelligence fund from a “measly” P1 million in 2015 to P5 million next year, so it can deploy more teams to investigate rights violations and to serve victims in need of protection.

On Wednesday, the agency asked the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives for more funds as it presented the proposed P428.5 million budget for 2016.

CHR Commissioner Karen Lucia Gomez Dumpit also asked the panel to provide a P7 million lump sum fund under personnel services so the commission could pay contractual workers and consultants for the chairperson’s office and the commissioners.

“We just want a little bit of it which can help in our investigation, information-gathering and quick response,” she told the committee.

Dumpit said the CHR was in need of an adequate intelligence fund, which it would use to deploy quick reaction teams composed of investigators and officials, and to serve immediate protection needs of victims and witnesses of human rights violations.

A small fraction

She noted that the amount the CHR was seeking was but a small fraction of the enormous intelligence funds of other agencies of the government.

The CHR’s appeal found a supporter in Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, who said he thought the agency’s budget “is really meager.”

“I am strongly supporting the budgetary proposals of the agency, including bigger intelligence fund,” he said.

Besides the addition to the intelligence fund and more funds for personnel services, Dumpit also asked for authority to use its savings to “augment actual deficiencies incurred for the current year,” subject to existing regulations.