(Eagle News) — The House of Representatives has agreed to restore the budget of three agencies, including the Commission on Human Rights.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Karlo Nograles said Wednesday that his panel has been given the approval to endorse the restoration of the 2018 proposed allocations for the CHR, the Energy Regulatory Commission, and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, which were earlier each given a P1000 budget for 2018 by the House.
According to Nograles, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez gave his approval after CHR head Chito Gascon, ERC Commissioner Geronimo Sta. Ana and NCIP Chair Leonor Oralde-Quintayo sought the help of Nograles and Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas to act as a bridge between them and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
In the “frank but cordial” meeting, Nograles said Gascon agreed to extend the commission’s inquiries beyond violations committed by the state to include other groups that commit crimes against the military, the police and civilians.
This was after the Speaker “basically told Chairman Gascon that we are not the enemy.”
“The Duterte government is not the enemy. We are one with the CHR in the fight against all forms of human rights violation, but they must start looking also at the violations committed by criminals and insurgents,” Nograles quoted Alvarez as saying.
According to Nograles, Alvarez and Fariñas were able to get assurances from the ERC and the NCIP that they would do what they could to fight graft and corruption.
Nograles said with Alvarez’s approval, the restoration of the budget for the CHR, the ERC and the NCIP would be reflected in the third reading approval of the proposed P3.767 trillion national budget for 2018.
The CHR had an initial proposed budget of P623.38 million, while the NCIP, P1.132 billion.
The ERC had a proposed initial budget of P365 million.