Rights chair vows to stand up to Rody

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte called him an idiot and told him to shut up, but Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chair Jose Luis Martin Gascon is not cowed.

Neither is he quitting even as a matter of courtesy.

“That would mean we lose our independence,” Gascon told the Inquirer in an interview on Wednesday.

Gascon has a seven-year term as chair of the CHR, an independent constitutional body, so he is not part of the Cabinet and under no compulsion to resign to give the incoming President a free hand in choosing a new human rights defender.

“The CHR is a constitutional office. If there’s a reorganization… the process of removing the CHR [chief] will have to be done according to the Constitution,” he said.

Gascon began his term in May last year, replacing Loretta Ann Rosales. This means that unless Duterte forces him out to put his own man on the commission, Gascon will remain in office for the duration of the President-elect’s term—until May 2022.

But Gascon said Duterte had not publicly said that he wanted him out of the CHR.

Asked what he would do if Duterte did try to replace him, Gascon said, “I will fight it.”

To watch Duterte

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the CHR’s four-and-a-half year project with Spain’s Agencia Española de Cooperacion Internacional para el Desarrollo (Aecid), Gascon discussed the “hopes and threats” presented by the incoming Duterte administration.

“We will deal with events and facts as they unfold,” he said.

“If the events and facts suggest that there’s repression rather than protection of human rights, the CHR is prepared to stand firm in defense of the promotion and fulfillment of human rights for all people,” Gascon said.

“We can [rest] assured human rights will be defended in the days, weeks and months ahead,” he said.

Before his proclamation as winner of the May 9 presidential election, the foul-mouthed Duterte lashed out at Gascon for calling him out on his joke about the gang rape and murder of an Australian missionary during a prison riot in Davao City in 1989.

Duterte called Gascon “naïve” and “an idiot” after the CHR ruled that the longtime Davao mayor violated the Magna Carta of Women when he joked that he should have been first to rape the missionary.

“Tell him to shut up… That idiot is nitpicking,” Duterte said, referring to Gascon.

Duterte, who has been linked to so-called death squads that have killed more than 1,000 criminal suspects in Davao, also promised during the campaign to kill tens of thousands of criminals outside the justice system.

He also vowed to restore the death penalty, with hanging as the preferred method of execution.

Stand and fight

In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, Gascon said he would not shut up.

“We will continue to monitor and protect human rights if we see abuses, we will stand and fight for human rights. Nothing in our mandate is to shut up,” he said.

As for Duterte’s calling him an idiot, Gascon brushed it aside, saying: “Everyone has an opinion about everyone. We will just respect his opinion, and I will perform my job according to the Constitution.”

In the same CHR event, Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines Luis Antonio Calvo Castaño, responding to a question about what he thought of Duterte’s recent provocative remarks on human rights, said he would give the incoming President time.

“He has to be given time and margin to prove he is really committed to the conditions of those who are being kept outside. We feel very encouraged by his record in Davao as mayor for more than 20 years,” he said.

Castaño, who has not met Duterte, said he would have to first observe “how his presidency evolves.”

Spanish aid

The Spanish government, through Aecid, gave the CHR  2.75 million euros, or P137 million, for the Fortaleza project, aimed at strengthening the commission’s methods of promoting human rights.

It sought to achieve two main results: to strengthen the CHR’s capabilities to deliver human rights protection, promotion and policy services, and to build a community and culture of human rights in the Philippines through the establishment of an integrated multilateral approach program.

The CHR-Aecid Fortaleza project significantly helped in the construction of four new regional office buildings in Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Bicol region and Soccsksargen.