The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said on Wednesday it targets to dispose of 6,094 cases from its backlog within the year.
The cases are mostly civil and political rights violations, CHR chairperson Richard Palpal-latoc said.
“When we assumed office as of today, we have already disposed of 9,645, and we have a pending 6,094 backlog cases. We hope to dispose of these cases within the year,” said Palpal-latoc during the Senate subcommittee’s deliberations on the agency’s budget for 2025.
According to CHR data, 4,915 cases have been resolved from January to June this year. This is so far an improvement from 3,055 cases closed in 2023.
However, Senator Raffy Tulfo said that the CHR should focus more on cases involving poor individuals being abused by authorities rather than those involving political rights.
“Why are you concerned about political rights, when in fact mas dapat pagtuunan niyo yung mga pobre na walang kinalaman sa politics […] You should protect the rights of the innocents, those people or accused by policemen na gumawa ng kasalanan na hindi naman,” he said.
(Why are you concerned about political rights, when in fact you should be more concerned about the poor people who are not involved in politics […] You should protect the rights of the innocents, those people accused by policemen for committing wrongdoings.)
“Alisin mo na siguro itong political rights, because these people they have their own lawyers especially itong mga nagra-rally,” he added. “Hindi naman sila magra-rally diyan kung wala silang mga backers.”
(Do not be involved in political rights, because these people have their own lawyers, especially those who are rallying. They will not join rallies if they don’t have backers.)
While he shares the same sentiments with the senator, Palpal-latoc said that the CHR is mandated to conduct investigations on human rights violations involving civil and political rights.
“Sapagkat ito po ay mandatong ibinigay ng Saligang Batas sa ating komisyon. Number one po yun sa ating mandato, to investigate violation of civil and political rights. Despite that, we are doing monitoring, investigative monitoring sa mga socio-economic rights po,” he said.
(This is the commission’s mandate under the Constitution. It is at the top of our mandate, to investigate violations of civil and political rights. Despite that, we are doing investigative monitoring of socio-economic rights.)
CHR’s proposed budget for 2025 stands at P1.1 billion, which is higher than its present budget of 981,363 budget.
