COMMUNIST Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison denounced President Rodrigo Duterte Friday as the “worst kind of president” after authorizing a budget of only P1,000 for the Commission on Human Rights and billions of pesos for law enforcement.
“I think I have a lot of criticisms to make of previous presidents, but this is the worst kind of president,” Sison said in an ANC television interview.
“I would say that Duterte is very well on the way to proclaiming a fascist dictatorship. He’s preparing for martial law and to impose a fascist dictatorship in the Philippines,” he added.
Sison slammed Congress’ move to allocate only P1,000 to the CHR, which supports his statement that Duterte is heading towards dictatorship.
“The way the budget is made, it’s a killing budget, a budget for killing people, and a budget for expressing contempt for human rights.”
“Reducing budget of the CHR to just P1,000 and then giving ‘tokhang’ this scheme of mass murder, P900 million plus other funds of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and a huge intelligence fund of Duterte—this is a budget for fascist dictatorship and for killing more people,” he said.
He added that Duterte is preparing for massacres in the Philippines.
“We are looking forward to despotic regime of widespread death and destruction. That is already well demonstrated in the destruction of Marawi,” he added.
The Palace on Friday said that they are still hopeful that the P3.35-trillion budget submitted before Congress would be approved in whole, after the House of Representatives slashed the budget of at least three agencies to P1,000.
Communications Assistant Secretary Michael Kristian Ablan said the decision of the House to give the CHR only P1,000 was simply part of the checks and balances in government.
“That’s how… our checks and balances works under the Constitution. Until that is changed, we have to respect it,” he added.
On Tuesday, 119 lawmakers voted to slash the 2018 budget of the CHR to only P1,000, while only 32 voted against the proposal.
Senators said they are hopeful they can find a middle ground to resolve their conflict with the House over the CHR budget.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, vice chairman of the Senate finance committee, has vowed to call for the restoration of the CHR budget, but said the Senate is not imposing its will on the House.
“Hopefully we can find some middle ground to resolve the disagreeing provisions of the 2018 budget bill,” he said.
He added that the senators would listen to the House members’ arguments during the bicameral conference committee meetings.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said the Senate will stand firm on its decision to restore the CHR budget.
“Yes. Majority of the senators will stand by Senate’s decision to maintain the CHR budget,” said Drilon, who warned that a deadlock would result in a reenacted budget.
Senator Risa Hontiveros, meanwhile, slammed the Duterte administration for cutting the CHR budget down to P1,000, while allocating P1.35 billion for the Presidential Communication Operations Office.
“There’s money for fake news but not for human rights,” Hontiveros said. “It seems that this government is willing to use taxpayer’s money to reward lies and incompetence rather than allow a constitutionally-created body to fulfill its mandate to protect the human rights of Filipinos.”
The PCOO, and the Philippine News Agency under its management, have made several embarrassing mistakes and factual errors in the last few months.
In May of this year, the PNA ran a story saying that 95 countries were convinced that there were no extrajudicial killings in the country. The claim was immediately contradicted by the United Nations Periodic Review.
In the same month, a photo depicting Vietnamese soldiers was used to show Philippine soldiers fighting in Marawi. It was later revealed that the same photo was sourced from Wikimedia commons.
Last August, the government’s news agency posted an article calling the historic ruling won by the Philippines against China an “ill-founded award.”
On Friday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana admitted that the existence of the CHR keeps the police and military cautious in their actions.
He said the CHR must stay in the government for checks and balances and said he opposed the House move to slash its budget to P1,000.
As a constitutional body, its people—including its chairman, Chito Gascon—cannot be removed.
“It has the right to be funded,” said the former army major general who also said that the military enjoys a good working relationship with the CHR.
He noted that the record of the military for the past couple of years shows the military had very few human rights violation.
Two other agencies were also given a budget of only P1,000 because of their failure to perform—the Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples—but only the CHR budget cut has stirred widespread condemnation of the lawmakers and the administration.