CHR seeks drug war records from ICAD
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) will request access to documents related to the government’s deadly war against illegal drugs from the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) now headed by Vice President Leni Robredo.
“The CHR has been requesting all relevant documents related to the deaths resulting from police operations from the beginning, and have regularly been denied access to them by the Philippine National Police,” CHR chairman Chito Gascon told The STAR on Saturday.
“We will definitely put forward a similar request for full transparency from the ICAD now that VP Leni is leading it,” he added.
Robredo, who accepted the designation as ICAD co-chair last Wednesday, earlier said that she would request all relevant information about the anti-illegal drug campaign to fully understand the situation.
“I want to know the data, because before today, I did not have
access to the kind of data that you had access to,” she said prior to her first ICAD meeting on Friday.
Robredo has yet to announce if she would make public the information about the drug war, particularly those involving the thousands who died in operations that the CHR has been investigating.
Asked if the CHR is willing to join ICAD, Gascon said the commission is independent of the executive branch and that they cannot be part of such inter-agency bodies.
“We do exercise police advisory functions and as such we welcome any opportunity to provide input on matters of concern that may impact upon human rights standards and obligations,” he said.
“We can, from time-totime, be invited to meetings and submit policy papers. We can also be an observer,” he added.
The CHR, like Robredo, has been critical of the deadly campaign against illegal drugs, particularly the deaths of thousands of suspects who allegedly fought back during police operations.
The human rights body has repeatedly urged the police to release information about the incidents and called on the government to file cases against the police involved before the courts.
“An overused narrative claimed by state agents in the middle of the campaign against illegal drugs, we urge the government to investigate and shed light to thousands of other unlawful aggression (‘nanlaban’) cases and allow the rule of law to prevail,” CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said in an earlier statement.
“We also remind the state and law enforcers that it is their sworn duty to guarantee that ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the law,’” she added.