CHR budget eyed to buy cops body cameras

President Rodrigo Duterte has suggested using the budget taken away from the Commission on Human Rights to buy body cameras for policemen as his crackdown on illegal drugs and crime faces intense public scrutiny following the successive deaths of teenagers.

Voting 119-32, the House of Representatives, which is dominated by allies of the president, has given the CHR a P1,000 budget for next year because of the constitutional body’s supposed failure to protect the human rights of crime victims.

The CHR, which has been criticizing the spate of killings tied to the Duterte administration’s anti-drug crackdown, maintains that law enforcers are the ones mandated to deal with crimes committed by private individuals. The commission also insists that it is a watchdog, monitor and educator of government and is not mandated to act on criminal complaints.

Duterte believes that buying sophisticated body cameras can address allegations that policemen are involved in abusive practices.

“If you do not want to return the budget to the CHR, why don’t you invest the money to buy equipment for the police, for all policemen in the Philippines?” the president said in a speech delivered in Davao City on Saturday.

“It’s about 600 million, and it can buy it all – place cameras on them 24 hours a day…These are state-ofthe-art and are just as big as clothing buttons,” he added.

Duterte said the placing of body cameras should be done without violating the privacy of government troopers.

“Just don’t invade the privacy of the soldiers and the policemen. But you are free to embed and place cameras on the body of the law enforcers whenever they go out to operate because the Philippines is a narco-state already,” the president said.

The executive department proposed a P678 million CHR budget for 2018, lower than the P749 million outlay for this year.

The House of Representatives’ decision to give CHR a P1,000 budget has sparked outrage among groups who believe that it sends a warning to the critics of Duterte.

Some senators have warned of a possible deadlock in the passage of the P3.7-trillion national budget for next year if the House insists on giving only P1,000 to the CHR.

GASCON POLITICIZED CHR

Duterte insisted that the CHR has focused too much on the killing of teenagers and has ignored the plight of victims of crime and terrorism.

“The (Commission on) Human Rights has been focusing on governments who are committing abuses and wrongdoings. Extrajudicial killing. That is one of the few things that you look into,” Duterte said.

“Humans (are) suffering in Marawi, including the Moro people (but) you did not even say ‘they are unfortunate… there has to be something’ or even try to worry about what will happen to the Moro people, to Marawi, after the war. For you, it’s about teenager, teenager. Son of a b **** . Everything is about politics,” he added.

“Why can’t you move on to other issues that are besetting this country? That’s about it? That’s how it is every time a child is killed? But that happens everywhere.”

Duterte mentioned the two-year-old boy in Muntinlupa who was raped and stabbed to death by his drug-intoxicated uncle.

“Then he had the gall to face the camera and say, ‘Because I was intoxicated with drugs.’ Son of a b **** . That is how lousy the Philippines is…Tell that in front of me and I will shoot you in front of the media,” he said.

Duterte accused CHR Chairman ChitoGascon of politicizing the CHR, calling him a “spokesman” for the Liberal Party and the opposition who want him out of the presidency.

The president even asked Gascon whether he was a pedophile because of his supposed fixation with teenagers, a statement that the CHR chair described as “hurtful” and “unacceptable.”

Questions have been raised about the police’s handling of suspects after the deaths of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos, whom witnesses claimed, was executed by law enforcers in Caloocan, and 19-year old Carl Arnaiz, who was accused of robbing a taxi driver.