Ex-CHR chair: Drug war not helping Filipinos
Former Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Loretta “Etta” Rosales criticized claims that the government’s war on drugs is necessary to protect the rights of the Filipinos.
Rosales said President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs is flawed, saying that suspected drug users should be given a day in the court and not be killed without due process.
“You have to go through due process before you pronounce that somebody is convicted to death. So that's the point and they don't do that, they just kill them outright," Rosales said.
"The assumption there is that the drug addicts, users, pushers, all those who are being killed are criminals and the only way to protect the human rights of the Filipino people is to get rid of these criminals. So [how is] the war on drugs protecting the rights of the Filipino people?" she added.
Rosales believed that the attention given by the Church and the rehabilitation process is the proper way of solving the drug problem in the country.
Drug users should be given another chance because some of them only need medical attention and that the way to solve drug problem is through “restorative justice,” Rosales said.
"[D]rug users are not criminals. They are patients that need medical attention. The attention that is being given by the Church, 'yung restorative justice, at saka rehabilitation process is the correct approach to solving the drug problem," she said.
Rosales urged the CHR to rise above politics because its “loyalty and accountability should be for the people and to the sovereign state,” Rosales said.