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Friday, March 29, 2024

Lawmakers file resolution honoring Gascon for human rights leadership

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A resolution citing the “courage and unwavering resolve” of the late Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights “to pursue and assert the mandates of the Commission” has been filed at the House of Representatives.

Gascon succumbed to COVID-19  on October 9, at age 57.

Agusan del Norte Rep. Lawrence Fortun, who filed the resolution on Monday, said Gascon faced “forbidding challenges to human rights in the country and pernicious attacks against his person and the institution.”

The CHR came under attack in 2017  when 119 congressmen during the budget deliberations voted to give the CHR a measly P1,000 budget.

Only 32 House lawmakers opposed the unfair allocation, one of them was Fortun.

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“…Chairman Chito was an untiring leader of the civil society and a constant light bearer at the forefront of countless collaborations and initiatives for the promotion and advancement of freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, rule of law, transparent and accountable governance, and peace,” the resolution reads.

“Pananaig ng Batas, Katarungan, at Karapatang Pantao and mga prinsipyong buong buhay ipinaglaban ni (Majesty of the law, justice and human rights are the principles that) Chairman Chito (fought for throughout his life),” Fortun said.

“While it is good to honor Chito by words, the better way to honor him is to utilize every technology, all means available to us to assert our human rights and hold power to account,” Fortun added.

“At this point in our history, when disinformation threatens the same principles that Chito fought for, I call on the Filipino people especially the youth, to safeguard themselves against propagandas that are meant to distort historical truths and perpetuate the disregard for human rights.”

The newly filed and still unnumbered Resolution also cites Gascon’s stint in the Department of Education as Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs where he was instrumental in the introduction of important reforms in the department especially in the areas of teachers’ welfare, protection and empowerment and the mainstreaming of rule of law and human rights education in the basic education curriculum.

Gascon served as a member of the Human Rights Victims Claims Board, the body created under the Human Rights Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013 and mandated to receive, investigate and adjudicate claims for reparation and recognition of victims of human rights abuses and violations in the 70s.

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