Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 15) — Malacañang on Thursday said appointments for the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which has been without a chairperson or commissioner for four months now, are already being reviewed.
“I understand it is already under consideration, so maybe any day now, I’m not sure,” Press Secretary Trixie Cruz Angeles said in a media briefing, referring to the appointments. “But like I said, it has been under consideration.”
The CHR, an independent office, is headed by a chairperson and four commissioners who are chosen by the Office of the President. Their term runs for seven years.
CHR Executive Director Jacqueline Ann de Guia told lawmakers during a budget hearing earlier in the day that their previous chairperson and all their commissioners retired last May 7.
“Currently, we don’t have the commission en banc. It should’ve been on its sixth term already,” she told the House Committee on Appropriations.
De Guia said they hope there will be an executive issuance, decree, or legislation that will ensure there is an “open and transparent” as well as “consultative” process in picking the heads of the commission.
She said top officials of the CHR should have at least 10 years of experience in the field of human rights and should come from different sectors of society.
