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The Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted a drug war review partial report to President Rodrigo Duterte without involving the independent Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
This, despite name-dropping the CHR to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC) when the DOJ committed that a high-level review would take place to reinvestigate the 5,655 deaths in police drug war operations.
Since that commitment was made in June, the CHR never got a response to any of its letters to the DOJ asking about the review.
Even in the data-sharing agreement with the DOJ on a separate panel on political killings, the CHR has not received any actual information yet.
These DOJ-led efforts are what the UN HRC cited when it shielded the Duterte government from tighter scrutiny.
But did the DOJ mislead the international community?
“Let’s just say it still remains an unfulfilled promise,” said CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez Dumpit.
Justice reporter Lian Buan talks to Dumpit in this Rappler Talk interview, airing Thursday, January 14. – Rappler.com
