Etta Rosales 'perfect' as CHR chief, says Hontiveros

Former Akbayan party-list Rep. Loretta Ann “Etta" Rosales would be the perfect new Human Rights chief, says her fellow former congresswoman Risa Hontiveros. The top position in the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was recently vacated by Leila De Lima, who is now the Secretary of the Department of Justice. Hontiveros says Rosales, who served as Akbayan representative from 1998 to 2007, “is more than qualified for the post." “The truth is, she is the perfect replacement for De Lima’s superb endeavor as the former head of the human rights commission," Hontiveros said in a statement on Friday. Hontiveros issued the statement after the human rights group Karapatan opposed the idea of President Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" Aquino III possibly appointing Rosales to the CHR. Karapatan says Rosales once supported a compromise deal with the Marcoses, allegedly making her biased against human rights victims and advocates. Hontiveros, however, says it is “absurd" to claim that Rosales would be biased against human rights victims. "Etta was a victim of the atrocities committed by the Marcos regime. To say that she is biased against the very same people she strongly identifies with flies in the face of logic," she says. Rosales led the human rights victims who won a class suit against the late President Ferdinand Marcos in the Hawaii District Court in the United States. The court found Marcos guilty of human rights violations and ordered him to pay the victims US $1.9 billion in damages. “This alone attests to Etta’s firm commitment to the victims and their collective aspiration to exact justice and accountability from the brutal Marcos dictatorship," Hontiveros says. She thinks the possible appointment of Rosales might have "irked" certain groups such as the Communist Party of the Philippines because Rosales is supposedly known for her "strong stance" against private armies like the New People’s Army. “Those who reject an unbiased Rosales as the new CHR chair are those that are highly biased and are in the fence refusing to uphold the universality of human rights. Well, the time for their limited concept of human rights has passed," she says. –VVP, GMANews.TV