We were shut out of Bilibid–CHR

Commission on Human Rights Chairman Chito Gascon (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ GRIG MONTEGRANDE)

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said Thursday it had been denied entry to the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) by the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police since the latter took over security at the facility two months ago.

CHR Commissioner Chito Gascon said the current NBP administrators informed his office they were instituting changes at the facility and that was why commission officials were barred from entering.

“Part of the mandate of the CHR is to make regular visits to places of detention like the NBP,” Gascon told reporters after he presented the proposed CHR budget for next year to a Senate finance subcommittee chaired by Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

 Families seeking help

Gascon said some family members of NBP inmates had sought CHR help because they were barred from visiting their loved ones. He said the families had not returned to the CHR, and they had no updates on them.

Gascon said they last sought access to the NBP two months ago and were denied entry.

President Duterte has ordered the SAF to secure the NBP which houses the country’s more notrious convicts. One inmate was recently killed in a purported riot, which also wounded inmate Jaybee Sebastian, whom Sen. Leila de Lima had said was being forced to testify against her.

 Lacson boosts budget

Meanwhile, Lacson said he would augment the CHR’s budget by taking out items from the proposed P3.35-trillion national budget for 2017 which he suspects are pork barrel funds, and re-aligning them to the human rights agency.

Speaking to reporters after the subcommittee on finance tackled the proposed P496-million budget of the CHR for next year, Lacson said it was clear the body would have “its hands full because of the war on drugs.” He was referring to the government’s antidrug campaign that has become controversial over allegations drug suspects are summarily executed.

Lacson said he had identified pork barrel funds for congressmen in the listed items in the proposed national budget after seeing a pattern where “identical amounts” of money were allocated to items

not identified.

“I already talked to my colleagues. I really intend to align, remove those items because it doesn’t make sense because the Supreme Court had already ruled very clearly that we do not have anymore the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF),” he said, referring to a 2013 high court decision deeming the PDAF, or pork barrel, unconstitutional.

“Why beat around the bush and still insist on parking some allocations in the different departments?” Lacson said.

He said the allocated pork barrel funds were “traditionally” parked in the Departments of Public Works and Highways, Agriculture, Health, and Social Welfare and Development.

 Credentials questioned

He noted that congressmen had recently threatened to question Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo’s credentials at the Commission on Appointments after she questioned the funds parked in her department.

CHR’s Gascon meanwhile said they requested for more funding as the number of witnesses seeking to be included in the government’s Witness Protection Program (WPP) was also rising amid the drug war.

“This needs to be increased so we can meet the demand of the witnesses,” he told reporters.