Sen. Franklin Drilon (from senate.gov.ph)
It’s the opposition’s turn to use the “nothing-to-hide” argument.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Friday urged the Duterte administration to allow the UN human rights office to investigate alleged cases of human rights abuses and killings in the war on drugs.
In a statement, Drilon said that “If everything is above-board…the government has nothing to worry about.”
He said the UN Human Rights Council’s approval of Iceland’s resolution, which called for a full report on the human rights situation in the Philippines, on Thursday in Geneva, could not be dismissed simply as foreign interference or a politically motivated act.
“We should allow the investigation to take place. The government must cooperate. We cannot simply ignore it, because we are part of it (UN human rights treaty) and the government is legally and constitutionally mandated to honor our treaty obligations,” Drilon said.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros said the council vote was a “courageous act of solidarity and humanity of those who supported the resolution.”
“I am sure that President Rodrigo Duterte’s spinmasters will zero in on how close the result was of the vote on the resolution and claim that even within the UNHRC, there is doubt about the truthfulness of the cases of human rights violations in our country,” she said. “We must not be misled.”
Jailed senator Leila de Lima welcomed the UN council vote, saying: “The door of domestic investigation may have been shut, but the windows of international scrutiny are beginning to open up towards justice for the Filipino people.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the Philippines could “manage without the intervention of the UN Human Rights Council.”
“We have a functioning criminal justice system that deals adequately with erring law enforcers. We regularly provide our Commission on Human Rights the budget they need to perform their mandate,” he said. (PressONE.ph)