Commission on Human Rights (RIP?)

In a constitutional law class, constitution is taught as a supreme law to which all other laws must conform and in accordance with which all private rights must be determined and all public authority administered. This concept, also termed constitutional supremacy, engenders, among law students, profound thinking. On the other hand, the comparatively lighter lectures about the constitution given to high school students may be differently worded but just the same they provide the knowledge that the constitution is the fundamental law of the land.

Before the effectivity of the 1987 constitution, there was an office called Presidential Committee on Human Rights. That office was established thru a statutory enactment in recognition of universally accepted traits and attributes of an individual along with what is generally considered to be his inherent and inalienable rights.

The 1986 Constitutional Commission saw the need to write into our charter the creation of an independent office called the Commission of Human Rights. It is composed of a chairman and four members and vested with specific powers and functions principally investigatory. The main mandate is to protect civil and political rights.

This office is not on the same level as such constitutional bodies as the Civil Service Commission, Commission on Elections and the Commission on Audit. It is possessed though with fiscal autonomy with such unmistakable constitutional provision that reads "(t)he approved annual appropriations of the Commission shall be automatically and regularly released." Certainly because it is a constitutional creation it cannot altogether be dispensed with by Congress. Those are the words of Fr. Joaquin Bernas, eminent constitutionalist and one of the members of the Constitutional Commission.

Dispense with it is just what the House of Representatives seems to be doing and probably worse. A majority of our congressmen, in utter disrespect of the constitutional mantle wrapped around the existence of the Human Rights Commission arrogantly propositioned to allocate only one thousand pesos for it. If true, this outlay cannot pay a day's wage of two janitors. Defacing the commission from the fundamental law is the inevitable consequence when the budget, as it is prepared by the lower house gets passed.

The legislative department has the power over the purse. By that constitutional paradigm, legislators review the budgetary proposal submitted by the president. Maybe, the congressmen who thumbs-upped the one thousand peso allocation for the human rights commission thought that their authority is absolute. That is an error, among others, that will be assigned when this matter reaches the Supreme Court, if ever.

But giving only one thousand pesos operates to kill (a more appropriate word than abolish) the commission. Can this be done in view of the constitutional birthright of the office? I doubt! To me, though, this is plain abuse of power. Let a hail of hellish sanction rain upon them who do not respect the fundamental law. The people should punish Congress for even just attempting to disregard a constitutional proviso. We must take note of them so that when the election comes, we know what to do with them.