Noy creates super human rights body

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino ordered yesterday the creation of special teams that would investigate human rights abuses committed by state and non-state forces, in order to ensure a focused probe and speedy resolution of all unsolved and new cases, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. said yesterday.

Ochoa said the teams would be part of an inter-agency committee (IAC) formed under Administrative Order 35 issued by Aquino to look into the cases of unexplained killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and other grave violations of the right to life, liberty and security.

“This directive reinforces the Aquino administration’s resolve to uphold and protect the rights of the people,” he said, adding they believe this “high-level committee will be a more effective mechanism in handling, monitoring cases of human rights violations.”

In a statement, Ochoa said AO 35 is immediately executory and replaces AO 221 issued by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007 that created the Task Force Against Political Violence.

AO 35 directs the task force to turn over all documents, data, reports, supplies, resources and its remaining budget to the IAC.

“The President envisions the administrative order to harmonize and standardize the government’s policies and action plan for resolving human rights abuses. This way we can have a focused investigation and speedy resolution of all the cases,” Ochoa said.

One of the first tasks of the IAC is to organize special teams and a technical working group that will carry out the immediate inventory of all alleged human rights violations committed by state and non-state forces; monitor the development of cases pending in court or under investigation, and conduct a probe into unsolved and new cases, as well as prosecute the perpetrators.

Under AO 35, the justice secretary will serve as the IAC chair, with the head of the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC), the secretaries of the Departments of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and National Defense (DND), the presidential advisers on the peace process (OPAPP) and political affairs (OPAPA), the chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) director as members.

The CHR chair and the Ombudsman will sit as observers and resource persons in the IAC, which is required every six months to submit to the President a progress report and a detailed inventory of pending human rights abuse cases, and accomplishment and recommendations, among others.

Aquino has asked all other government agencies and local government units to give their full support and cooperation to the IAC to make sure that AO 35’s objectives and the committee’s mandate are achieved.

The initial budget requirement of the committee will be taken from the current appropriation of the agencies comprising the IAC and subsequent funding will be incorporated in their respective regular budgets.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who was tasked to head the IAC, distributed to reporters yesterday copies of AO 35 signed by the President last Nov. 22.

The AO said the committee is tasked to conduct an inventory of all cases of extra-legal killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other human rights violations.

After the inventory, the committee is mandated to investigate unsolved cases by assigning special investigation teams to conduct further investigation for immediate identification of the perpetrators.

The President said high profile cases perpetrated during the past administrations would be given priority.

“Whereas, there is a need to revisit these unsolved cases of grave violations of the right to life, liberty, and security of persons, whether committed as part of an apparent government policy in the past or as recurring cases of unsanctioned individual abuse of power and authority by State and non-state forces under the present,” the order stated.

The committee is also tasked to designate a special oversight team composed of investigators and prosecutors who will monitor the development of the cases under investigation.

For new cases, the committee it will create a special team to handle the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators.

Majority of rights victims are male

There are more male victims of human rights violations than females as reported to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) last year, according to a report released yesterday by the Commission on Audit (COA), even as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) expressed alarm over the rising number of women victims of physical abuse.

Of the 3,386 victims of rights violations reported to the CHR, 1,908 were men while only 255 were women.

The same COA report also showed that the number of male human rights violators outnumber females by a huge margin – 1,194 and 781 respectively.

In 2011, the CHR received 2,910 complaints nationwide. It also identified 3,386 victims and 3,656 perpetrators of human rights abuses.

State auditors, however, noted that the report did not indicate the gender of another 1,493 victims and 1,411 perpetrators of rights violations.

In 2011, the CHR conducted preliminary evaluation on some 2,054 complaints to determine whether it had jurisdiction over the cases and the kind of actions to be undertaken.

“Of the cases evaluated, only 250 complaints required full-blown investigation while 1,731 needed legal and counseling services,” state auditors said.

On human rights promotion, state auditors credited the agency now headed by former party-list lawmaker Loretta Ann Rosales for the conduct of 727 human rights education and promotion activities.

Meanwhile, the DWSD expressed alarm yesterday over the increasing number of female victims of physical abuse.

The agency said there are 12,948 cases of domestic violence recorded from January to August this year. –Delon Porcalla (The Philippine Star) with Edu Punay, Michael Punongbayan, Helen Flores