Duterte to invite UN rights body to set satellite office in Philippines

September 18, 2017

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday he will invite the Office of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR) to establish a satellite office in the Philippines to monitor the government's war on drugs.

In an interview in Caloocan City, Duterte said the presence of the OHCHR will be in lieu of the job of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) whose proposed budget for next year was only P1000 as approved by the House of Representatives.

"I will personally, through an official channel, invite the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations to set up a satellite office here," he said. He said he would provide an office for the OHCHR.

"They (OHCHR) will just place people in every station. In every operation, I will tell the police station commanders, the PNP, 'Do not operate without the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. And everybody must wear a camera'," he said.

Duterte reiterated that the over P600 million budget proposed for the CHR, which the House slashed, could instead be used the fund to acquire cameras for the policemen conducting operations.

"So nobody from the police will operate without a camera...and it will be strictly followed and media is free to cover,"  Duterte said.

"Now, with that 600 million ( pesos) I can buy all the cameras in the world for every policeman to wear. And I will order the PNP not to go into a police action, punitive, without the cameras," he added.

Duterte said the CHR would not be abolished, but it would just be "on stand by" while Chito Gascon remains its chair.

Duterte and his allies in Congress have perceived Gascon of engaging in partisan politics as the latter has been critical of the alleged extrajudicial killings of drug suspects. They want Gascon, whose term of office will be until 2022, to resign. Celerina Monte/DMS