Manila Times columnist Sass Rogando
Sasot wrote an article regarding the
Commission on Human Rights and its primary role most specially in the Duterte
administrations war on illegal drugs. The title of the article is The role of the CHR in the war on
narco-politics, which was published today.
The CHR has been
in the receiving end as regards the criticism of those Filipinos who has deemed
it has been working on a governmental budget but its sole job is to attack the
sitting president with respect to his advocacy in cleaing the streets of
illegal drugs.
Full
article quoted below:
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| The relevance of the Constitutionally created Commission at the time where the sitting President- Rodrigo Duterte has declared war against illegal drugs (photo credit to owner) |
Poppycock! In 2006, the CHR
investigated and held a hearing on Aruba Bar & Restaurant’s dress code
policy which prohibits cross-dressers from entering their establishment. In
December 2015, it agreed to launch an inquiry to find out if oil, gas, and coal
companies, such as Shell and Exxon, had violated the human rights of Filipinos
because of their role in the devastating effects of climate change. Are these
respondents State actors?
Sure, the CHR has the duty to
investigate human rights abuses committed by government actors, even against
drug personalities. But the CHR is mandated by law to investigate “all forms of
human rights violations.”
Ratified by the Philippines in 1999,
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the only human rights
convention that specifically mentions the right against the illegal drug trade.
Article 33 mandates that: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures,
including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to
protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic
substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to prevent
the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such
substances.” In short, children have a right to an illegal-drug-trade-free
environment. *
The CHR has the duty to ensure that
government actors are complying with that provision of the CRC. Yet we never
hear CHR speak at all, nor launch an investigation, whenever that provision is
being violated. For example, in February 2017, when the Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas, raised the alarm about children being
employed as drug runners (Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 10, 2017), a
clear violation of Article 33 of the CRC. Where was CHR?
Also, the CHR could launch an inquiry
into the culpability of government officials in creating an environment where
children are exposed to the dangers, violence, and exploitation brought by drug
syndicates. CHR could start investigating the cities where there are high drug
affectation rate, like Caloocan, where there is a 100 percent drug affectation
rate (GMA News, October 22, 2015). That means: CHR shouldn’t only investigate
police abuse against Kian delos Santos but Caloocan’s compliance with Article
33 of CRC.
This is something the CHR could
contribute to our country’s “war on narco-politics” that is within their
mandate. Why aren’t they doing it?
Human rights are vocabularies of
resistance against those who exercise power over us in different contexts of
power relations. They act like a generative grammar, providing structure to the
chaotic demands of human dignity. The individual-State relationship is just one
of the myriad power relations in which our lives are embedded. *
But power relations aren’t just limited
in the public sphere, they can also be found in the private sphere, as
feminists have long pointed out, concisely expressed in this mantra: the
personal is political. Child-parent, wife-husband, student-teacher,
employee-employer, patient-doctor, patient-psychiatrist, consumer-businesses,
people-media, people-NGOs, etcetera — these are all manifestations of power
relations and the inequality that they engender is the fertile ground for
resistance. Consequently, they are sites where we demand rights and perform the
accompanying responsibilities of each right we claim.
Even the relationship of ordinary
citizens versus drug syndicates and their government protectors is a context of
power relations. But this power relation is unlike any other we encounter in
our daily normal lives.
Drug syndicates and their government
protectors aren’t like States from whom one can demand rights and
responsibilities because in the first place the power that they exercise is not
legitimate and their existence in our society serves no noble ends.
The power relations between drug
syndicates and their government protectors is a relationship akin to the
relationship between humans and God. It’s a relationship of power that one can
never ever equalize. In the face of the brutality of God’s power, the only
thing humans can do is to pray for mercy. *
Drug syndicates and their government
protectors behave exactly like that—we are at their mercy. But because they are
not God, their casualties cannot just be dismissed as part of the divine plan
of the Almighty.
The millions of drug addicts and
pushers who surrendered so far? That’s the current count of the casualties of
the power wielded by drug syndicates and their government protectors. And that
is on top of the number of families destroyed, communities terrorized, victims
of rape, murder, robbery, and other heinous crimes committed by people under
the influence of shabu sold by drug syndicates who in turn fatten the pockets
of their government protectors.
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