House panel to fast-track bill giving CHR power to prosecute rights offenders

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter

A HOUSE of Representatives committee will expedite hearings on a bill that seeks to give the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) the power to prosecute human rights violators once Congress resumes sessions next week, according to its chairman, amid a Senate investigation of ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

“We’ll fast-track it,” Manila Rep. Bienvenido M. Abante, Jr., who heads the House human rights committee, said in an interview on Tuesday. “With the House quad committee hearings, I think the bill will be appropriate. I’ll be talking to the [House] leadership about it.”

On Monday, CHR Chairman Richard P. Palpal-latoc told senators the Philippine National Police had sandbagged their investigation into alleged state-sponsored killings under Mr. Duterte’s anti-illegal drug campaign by denying their requests for documents on police raids.

The Philippine government estimates that more than 6,000 died under the campaign, according to a Facebook infographics posted published in June 2022 by RealNumbersPH, which is operated by the inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs. Human rights groups say the death toll could be as high as 30,000.

“The CHR can only investigate but cannot prosecute [human rights violators],” he told a news briefing in Filipino earlier this week. “That’s why I said we should give the CHR some teeth so they can do their mandate, even to prosecute those they believe are truly guilty.”

The late President Corazon C. Aquino created the CHR in 1987 through Executive Order No. 163. The CHR is limited to investigating human rights abuses and cannot file or hear charges, the Supreme Court ruled in 1991.

House Bill No. 9437, which Mr. Abante filed in 2023, seeks to empower the agency to file cases before the Ombudsman or any prosecutor’s office. The bill also expands the functions of the CHR by allowing it to compel witnesses to testify in its investigation and cite uncooperative witnesses in contempt.

Congress should look at strengthening the CHR’s investigative power by empowering its subpoena powers instead of giving it the ability to file cases, said Carlos H. Conde, a senior researcher at the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

“Giving it prosecutorial powers would basically overhaul the CHR and I don’t think that is feasible,” he said in a WhatsApp message, adding that it would create “complications” because it is supposed to be an independent government body. “The CHR is about the only independent body that can do meaningful work to improve human rights. For that to happen, the government needs to make the CHR more independent, give it more resources and strengthen its mandate.”

Mr. Conde said giving the commission prosecutorial powers would unlikely change how government agencies engage with it. “Other parts of the government are not engaging with it, are hostile to it, and just don’t have any respect for it. I doubt giving it prosecutorial powers would change all that.”

Cristina E. Palabay, secretary-general of Karapatan, said giving the CHR prosecutorial powers would help human rights victims and their kin in pursuing lawsuits against state perpetrators.

Lawmakers should also review Philippine human rights laws to determine if the country still complies with international norms, she said in a Facebook Messenger chat. “They should conduct a comprehensive audit of current laws if these adhere to international human rights norms and instruments.”