Roasting Human Rights Minister Chito Gascon Under A Parliamentary System

Yesterday was Human Rights' Day and it's time to tackle on the Commission on Human Rights' existence and what was its original purpose. Its first and foremost mandate is to investigate on its own or complaint all forms of human rights violations. Yet as said organization evolved (or devolved) then it has shrunk to its weird logic that human rights violation can only be committed by state agents. That kind of logic is screwed up because any victim of crime regardless who does it is already considered a criminal.

The real problem is not the CHR but Chito Gascon. Giving PHP 1,000.00 only to a government agency would bully those employees who do their job in spite of having a lazy chairperson. If Gascon is the problem then by all means -- fire him from his post! But the problem of the CHR's deterioration can be linked to the presidential system's one-sidedness without any real watchdog. So how would a parliamentary actually work in making sure that CHR does its job as a human rights watch?

Let us think of the situation of how Shadow Ministers would take its work. For every corresponding government function -- there is a Shadow Minister. If Gascon would be the Minister of Human Rights under Prime Minister Noynoy Aquino, then take for example where Harry Roque (a human rights lawyer) acts as the Shadow Minister of Human Rights. The beauty of a parliamentary system is that there's actually a real formal opposition with watchdogs from every side. The Opposition or Minority Bloc is there for check and balance which would make sure neither side gets absolute power. The Opposition serves as watchdogs for agencies and to mirror everything in a debate.

A parliamentary would have already roasted Human Rights Minister Gascon. Human Rights Minister Gascon would say that the CHR was only made to take care of state agents. However, Shadow Human Rights Minister Roque would read the mandate of CHR that it's involved in investigating all human rights violation and to make sure that the law complies. This would also result in a real fault-finding where Human Rights Minister Gascon's anomalies would get a vote of no confidence done against said person. No need to reduce budget to PHP 1,000.00 because Gascon would have been fired off from his position as the Minister of Human Rights.