'I don't see myself competing with De Lima' - Rosales

Former party-list lawmaker Loretta "Etta" Rosales on Wednesday admitted that she has big shoes to fill in as the new chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). President Benigno Simeon Aquino III on Wednesday confirmed Rosales' appointment, finally ending weeks of speculation about who would assume the top post vacated by former CHR chairwoman Leila de Lima. De Lima now heads the Justice Department. "I know I will be compared to her [De Lima] but I do not see myself competing with her," Rosales, a human rights activist and three-term congresswoman from the Akbayan party-list, told GMANews.TV in an interview. Rosales said that while she and De Lima are both human rights defenders, they come from different backgrounds. Rosales stressed that she was a lawmaker while De Lima was an election lawyer. "I am not a lawyer but I have experience working with marginalized people," Rosales said, adding that being a torture victim during the Martial Law era gave her a "first-hand experience" of what it is like to have one's human rights violated. Meanwhile, De Lima was a hard-hitting election lawyer for the Genuine Opposition in the May 2007 mid-term elections, before being appointed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in May 2008 to head the CHR. Under De Lima's term, the CHR conducted a string of investigations on the alleged lapses of the police in encounters with suspected criminals, including the controversial Makati shootout in December 2008 and the NIA Road shootout in February 2009. Rosales praised De Lima for initiating these investigations and for her accomplishments at during her two-year term as the CHR head from 2008 to June this year. "The CHR has reached its highest stature under De Lima. She elevated in a quantitative way the role of the CHR" said Rosales. 'Consultative' CHR Rosales thanked Aquino for appointing her and promised that she would focus on addressing civil and political rights violations, including among others extra-judicial killings and torture, as well as the November 23 Maguindanao massacre. Asked what she hopes her administration would be most known for, Rosales said she would make the CHR a "very consultative body." "That's where I am coming from, so I will continue that [consultative aspect of CHR]. We will be in touch with the people and listen to their grievances," she said. Rumors of her appointment earlier drew criticisms from her fellow activists, mostly those from left-leaning organizations, who alleged that she she was biased against them. Rosales had 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. Her critics noted how Rosales supported a compromise settlement that human rights victims under Martial Law made with Marcos in exchange for monetary compensation. However, her fellow Akbayan colleague and former party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros has a different take on the settlement. “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. Hontiveres added that Rosales was the "perfect" successor of De Lima. – VVP, GMANews.TV