Vice President Leni Robredo on Tuesday said human rights should be inherent in governance, being the “core and soul” of the 1987 Constitution and of the country.
Robredo made the comment at a press conference in response to a question whether she agreed with what President Rodrigo Duterte said in his State of the Nation Address that “human rights cannot be used as a shield or as an excuse to destroy the country.”
READ: Duterte: Don’t use human rights as excuse to destroy PH
“Yes, I believe that (human rights) should not be used as an excuse for such an end. But we should remember that our Constitution is known all over the world as a bastion of human rights,” Robredo said.
Human rights, she said, should not be set aside when it comes to governance and all other “drives” of government today.
“This is the totality, the core and the soul of our country,” Robredo, who had lawyered for indigents, said.
She also said the 1987 Constitution was crafted following a regime that did not give importance to human rights, referring to the martial law period where hundreds of dissenters to the dictator Ferdinand Marcos were killed or had gone missing.
“A big part of our Constitution, again and again, reminds us that (human rights) is the soul of our country,” she said.
In his Sona, Duterte assailed calls for his administration to respect human rights amid a growing number of executions of alleged drug users and pushers.
He pounced on an Inquirer photo showing a woman embracing her husband, alleged to be a drug pusher, who was shot and killed in Pasay City, dismissing it as “drama.”
The gripping photograph became viral, with many adopting it as a representation of the extrajudicial killings that resulted from the Duterte administration’s fight to eradicate illegal drugs.
“Let us be clear with each other. I am for the comfort and the welfare of the Filipino. Kayo namang hindi pa bungog diyan, hindi pa pumasok ‘yang mga droga, eh kung ayaw ninyong mamatay, ayaw ninyong masaktan, huwag kayong umasa diyan sa mga pari pati human rights, hindi nakakapigil ‘yan ng kamatayan. So huwag ninyong gawin,” Duterte said, adding:
“Eh tapos nandiyan ka nakabulagta and you are portrayed in a broadsheet na parang Mother Mary cradling the dead cadaver of Jesus Christ. Eh ‘yan, ‘yang mga ‘yan, magda-dramahan tayo dito.”
As of Tuesday, the Inquirer kill list has recorded 364 deaths of alleged drug pushers and users.
Robredo has twice issued a strong statement against the rising body count, expressing concern over vigilantism and called for an investigation into the extrajudicial killings.
She also reiterated on Tuesday her opposition to the reimposition of the death penalty.
“I think my stand here is something the administration will respect,” Robredo said.
She also said she did not agree with the lowering of criminal liability from 15 to nine years old, and vowed to voice her opposition to it.
“Kokontra ako if there would be moves na bababaan ito,” said Robredo, who was among those who authored the Juvenile Justice Law.
She said setting the age of criminal liability at 15 years old in the law was well thought out and was not something that was “chosen randomly from out of the numbers we had.”
“What we have in the law is sufficient,” Robredo said.
The Vice President described it as a “terrifying situation” wherein there would be death penalty and the age of criminality is lowered.
“It is scary to have children who could be sentenced to death,” Robredo said./rga
READ: FULL TEXT: President Duterte’s first State of the Nation Address