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BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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Monday. September 18, 2017
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THE PROBLEM is not the Commission on Human Rights or CHR but its commissioner, Jose Luis Martin “Chito” C. Gascon. Although there are reliable information that came up saying the very existence and legal basis of the CHR is highly questionable.
But let’s not talk about that yet, we’ll first sort out the cause of the problem that is now threatening the very existence of CHR and why Congress decided to reduce its 2018 budget from P678 million to just P1,000.
CHR Commissioner Chito Gascon is a devotee to the cult of the yellow ribbon. If you cut open his veins you will see that the color of the blood flowing is yellow.
He is fond of wearing yellow ties with the glasses of his “hero” Ninoy Aquino as the design motif. He also wears on his lapel a “yellow ribbon” pin (the ultimate symbol of the cult of the yellow ribbon).
I bet my dog’s black balls that even his knickers are yellow; he is just a degree short of becoming another cosplay character of Ninoy Aquino, Bambam Aquino just beat him to the draw.
When the son of “Sainthood Interrupted” Cory Aquino and “Father of Democracy” Ninoy Aquino, that nincompoop Noynoy, became President, Chito Gascon’s star started rising and he was eventually appointed as the Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights.
“Take your best orgasm and multiply it a thousand times”, you’re nowhere near the ecstasy Chito feels serving Noynoy Aquino. But faith has this nasty habit of playing cruel jokes. Rodrigo Duterte just had to win over Mar “Daang Matuwid” Roxas; it was coitus interuptus for Chito.
He made it his life’s mission to bring down President Rodrigo Duterte with the hope that if this happens then the “disente” “Lady from Naga” Vice President Leni Robredo becomes President.
Now if a person is a rabid devotee to the cult of the yellow ribbon i.e. Cynthia Patag, Leah Navarro and Jim Paredes, that’s their right and if they don’t like President Duterte, again that’s their right.
It only becomes a problem if you’re the Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights. CHR is a government organization and you use that organization’s resources to bring down the President of the Republic – which is exactly what Chito Gascon is doing.
Here are excerpts from the Sept. 14 edition of GMA News Online:
“An official of the Department of Interior and Local Government on Thursday urged Commission on Human Rights chairperson Chito Gascon to resign from his post ‘to save the CHR as an independent institution.’
“DILG Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing III said Gascon was using CHR to propagate the interest of the Liberal Party, which is one of the reasons why the House of Representatives voted to give only a P1,000 budget to the commission for 2018.
“‘Chairman Chito Gascon should resign as chair of the CHR if only to save the CHR as an independent institution,’ Densing told GMA News Online. ‘Because in my perspective, since the start of the Duterte administration, he has been using the institution to propagate information that are not necessarily true and promotes their advocacy to bring down the presidency.’
So you see people, when you actually do some thinking and try to analyze the issue and not be carried away by Chito Gascon’s and his supporter’s rhetoric, you’ll see that he is the problem and not the Commission on Human Rights.
Where can you find a government official using the government organization he works for and its resources to discredit and make the President of the Republic look bad?
But then again, what if the Commission on Human Rights or CHR is of dubious origin and legal basis?
From Yen Makabenta’s Sept. 16 column in Manila Times:
“The glaring fact that proves the lie behind the CHR is Executive Order 163, which is deceptively and wrongfully paraded as the enabling law behind the commission.
“It is a remarkable document of self-dealing and usurpation of congressional authority.
“The EO bears the imposing title, Executive Order No. 163, ‘Declaring the effectivity of the creation of the Commission on Human Rights as provided for in the 1987 Constitution, providing guidelines for the operation thereof, and for other purposes.’
“The tone is like that of God saying: ‘Let there be light.’
“The order enumerates the powers and functions envisioned for the commission by the charter, and recite them verbatim:
“But the order does more than that. It adds items and matters that can only belong to Congress’ authority; it assumes that Aquino had the power to wield it.
“Aquino on her own volition decides to call the CHR ‘a constitutional office’, suggesting that it is like the three constitutional commissions explicitly cited in the Charter: the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Elections, and the Commission on Audit.
“The EO does not say that the commission will investigate only human rights violations by state actors. It says only that ‘it will monitor the Philippine Government’s compliance with international treaty obligations on human rights.’ Nowhere are the police and the military mentioned.
“Finally, in an expansion of her authority, Aquino declares that, ‘The unexpended appropriations of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights are hereby transferred to the Commission on Human Rights. All properties, records, equipment, buildings, facilities and other assets of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights shall be transferred to the Commission on Human Rights.’
“It is a cardinal rule in US interpretation of the separation of powers that the President cannot appropriate what does not belong to him.
“EO 163 does not sound like an enabling act at all. It does not have the rigor and sweep of a real law.
“Without doubt, Congress, in exercising its powers of debate, review and deliberation, would have written a different and better law creating the human rights commission.
“As things stand therefore, the nation has been handed a statute of doubtful legality, an agency of questionable life expectancy, and state coffers must foot the bill.” (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
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