MANILA – Albay First District Rep. Edcel Lagman has renewed the call for the appointment of commissioners for the Commision on Human Rights (CHR) during the agency’s budget hearing on Thursday.
“Hoping that the administration will appoint veritable human-rights advocates in the Commission on Human Rights,” said Lagman.
The veteran lawmaker put an emphasis on the appointees being honest, saying that it will be difficult for the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to find an advocate who can make certain compromises.
“If the present administration is looking for a person, or persons who have credentials of human-rights advocacy, but who are willing to compromise their principles, then it will be a difficult search. It is just like looking for a needle in a haystack,” the lawmaker said.
This statement came after Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, vice chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, asked if all the commissioner positions were vacant.
“They are appointed by the Office of the President, and currently we don’t have the commission en banc… all our chairpersons and commissioners retired last May 7. They enjoyed a full term of seven years,” said CHR Executive Director Jacqueline Ann de Guia.
De Guia said that the CHR has been in contact with Malacañang about the appointment process.
“We do hope that there will be an executive issuance, a decree, or a legislation that will highlight that there is a process, that it is transparent, highly consultative with broad participation from the public, as well as from all stakeholders,” said de Guia.
Lagman lamented the lack of a chair and commissioners, likening it to the absence of an appointed health secretary.
“It is really an unfortunate coincidence, that those who are ministering to the victims of the pandemic and other diseases, do not have a permanent secretary in the Department of Health. And those who are ministering, to the victims of human rights violations, do not have stewards in the human rights commission, like the chairman and the other commissioners,” said Lagman.
A veteran lawmaker, Lagman had authored several bills that aimed to protect human rights, including the Anti-enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act and the Human Rights Defenders Bill. (Jean Mangaluz © Philippine Daily Inquirer 2022)
