FROM his shocking decision to allow the interment of Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani to supporting Bongbong Marcos’s electoral protest against Vice President Leni Robredo, expressing desire to extend Martial Law from Mindanao to Luzon and the entire country, and proposing that the Marcoses be given immunity so they could ostensibly return their ill-gotten wealth, the Duterte administration has betrayed its colors: it wants nothing less than the restoration of the Marcos, his family, and cronies and the corrupt and repressive authoritarianism they once embodied.
The restoration of authoritarian martial rule is pretty evident when Duterte’s own lapdogs in the House of Representatives voted last Sept. 12 to reduce the budget of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) from P648 million to P1,000. The amount is obviously an insult to the CHR: it is 100 times less than the monthly salary of more than P1 million of Presidential Communications Operations Office Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson.
The measly sum given to the CHR should show how the Philippine government values our human rights. The budget shows how foul and detestable these shameless crocodiles in the lowest of the low legislative chamber are.
Our lawmakers are sickening and infuriating. They even had the guts to pose the notorious fist-bump made famous by a foul-mouthed and cold blooded mass murderer of a president after they passed the humiliating budget of the CHR, revealing that their only concern was to suck up to the President. Filipinos now know they not only have crocodiles in Congress, but leeches and suckers as well.
The House of Representatives were apparently enraged that the CHR was probing into extrajudicial killings under Duterte’s anti-drug campaign. Their bias showed their complicity in the genocide.
Sagip Party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta moved for the slashing of the P678-million CHR budget, saying the CHR was “supposed to investigate every human rights violation irrespective of any group, any location, whether they are soldiers, policemen, NPA, Maute Group or Abu Sayyaf.” He added that the agency was not “validly created” since President Corazon Aquino created the agency on May 5, 1987, who he claimed lost her revolutionary powers at that time.
CHR was signed into office by late President Aquino almost a year after the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, which overthrew Marcos. It was solely created to investigate and protect civil and political rights of Filipinos.
Article 13 Section 18 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution reads that CHR has the power to “investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights.” Section 1 of the Bill of Rights reads “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws.”
Hence, it is the duty of CHR to make sure that the Bill of Rights is not violated by the state and its agents LIKE the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Imagine a country without a government agency protecting its citizens from abuses like the rampant extrajudicial killings of clowns, corrupters, and killers of the PNP. The PNP is nothing less than the dreaded Philippine Constabulary and Metrocom that committed human rights violations with the Armed Forces of the Philippines during Martial Law of the Marcos Regime.
Filipinos need to wake up from their dream that the Duterte administration would usher in a regime of welcome change in the country. What Duterte and his executioners and lapdogs are ushering back are the dark days of Martial Law with its widespread abuse of human rights.