ConCom votes to elevate CHR into constitutional body

FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte presides over a meeting with the members of the Consultative Meeting at the Malacañan Palace on February 13, 2018. KING RODRIGUEZ/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

With 16 votes in favor versus one against and one abstention, the consultative committee (ConCom) voted to elevate the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) into an independent constitutional body in the charter that the committee will draft on Monday, April 16.

Tasked by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to review proposals of revisions and amendments in the 1987 Constitution, the ConCom found importance on its decision with the CHR.

“The elevation of the CHR to the level of constitutional body is consistent with our desire to expand its coverage to include the socioeconomic and environmental rights which are to be enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and to include non-state actors, as well in its jurisdiction,” former Chief Justice Reynato Puno, sitting as the chairman of the ConCom said in a statement.

This elevation will strengthen the “investigative powers and expanding membership to include representatives from, among others, the marginalized sector, indigenous peoples and environmental advocates,” according to the committee.

However, ConCom in the draft of the Constitution did not give the CHR prosecutorial powers, since according to them, the human rights commission “was not keen on being given” such powers.

“The inclusion of a representative of the marginalized sector is also necessary because the socioeconomic rights are for the benefit of the poor and marginalized sector of society,” Puna said.

The CHR is one of the Duterte administration’s staunch critics, especially on the issue of the alleged extrajudicial killings in the President’s campaign against illegal drugs.

The said commission is also an independent National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) created under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, established on May 5, 1987 by virtue of Executive Order No. 163.

It is mandated to “investigate human rights violations against marginalized and vulnerable sectors of the society, involving civil and political rights.”