Akbayan bill seeks to expand Commission on Human Rights charter

Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello. Photo from congress.gov.ph

MANILA, Philippines -Believing that the Commission on Human Rights could no longer cope with today’s human rights concerns, Akbayan Representatives Walden Bello and Ibarra Gutierrez III on Tuesday filed a measure seeking to strengthen the institution by expanding its scope.

In a press conference, Gutierrez said that there was a need for an updated charter to replace Executive Order 163, which the CHR has been using since the late President Corazon Aquino’s time.

House Bill 2152 would “essentially provide an expanded charter for the CHR. This was a bill that was developed from the initial draft from the 15th Congress.”

Gutierrez said the bill would “bring the CHR in top shape to respond to the changing patterns of human rights abuses.”

Gutierrez said that currently, human rights protection in the country only covered civil and political rights but human rights abuses “have expanded to concerns on the right to housing and health care, and discrimination on the basis of gender and age” among others.

CHR chairperson Etta Rosales said that HB 2152 would “clear the gray area–the confusion prevailing” in the commission’s capacity to intervene in human rights abuse cases.

“The only way to clear the gray area is to pass this bill into law once and for all,” she said.

Rosales, a former lawmaker, said that the CHR ought to be able to determine how to best utilize its budget to enforce its mandate.

She said that the CHR should be granted fiscal autonomy and lamented how lawmakers failed to see the importance of human rights protection in the country.

“At best, the CHR is an institution largely dependent on the Executive for its operations. That the CHR cannot act autonomously from the Executive defeats the purpose of establishing a body that will ensure the application and protection of human rights principles under any and all possible circumstances,” said Gutierrez.

The Akbayan lawmaker said that the charter would allow the CHR to issue legal protective measures such as writs of injunction, restraining orders and cease and desist orders.

“Different forms of abuse happen and are reported every day. Unfortunately, the government fails to protect victims of human rights abuses from further harm because of the long, bureaucratic process required to obtain temporary remedy from the abused,” he said.