Senator Richard J. Gordon has called on the Commission on Human Rights to exert more efforts in gathering evidence and filing necessary charges against the perpetrators.
He said the CHR should press a little harder to get the trust of the people and to investigate, instead of just being a talking head.
“It must put a lot of effort to gather evidence and file necessary charges against the culprits. Every day there is someone being killed,” Gordon said during the deliberation for CHR’s budget for 2022.
He noted that while the CHR may investigate the drug-related killings, it is important to get strong witnesses to really apply due process in all killings because people have a right to be safe.
Gordon also advised the CHR to advertise what the agency is doing to let the public know that it is doing something and make people understand how they can participate and go after human rights abuses.
“Judges are killed, even teachers, policemen, and government employees, among others,” Gordon said.
The creation of the bill came following Supreme Court Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta’s previous statement that he envisions having a security force, patterned after the United States Marshals Service, that will protect the judges.
Gordon earlier expressed concern over the high number of murder cases involving the judiciary in the country, which includes the ambush of Ilocos Sur Judge Mario Anacleto Bañez in San Fernando, La Union last Nov. 5. Former Municipal Trial Court Judge Exequil Dagala was also shot dead in his residence in Siargao Island, Surigao del Norte last Nov. 1.