At a press briefing, Rosales said President Benigno Aquino III has already chosen nine appointees to the board, but refused to identify them pending official announcement from Malacañang.
“Meron na siyang listahan. Nakita ko na iyon. Basta ang listahan na iyan, ilalabas na. Malapit na,” she told reporters.
Rosales, however, admitted that she had to repeatedly remind the President to already form the compensation board for human rights victims during the dictatorship of former President Ferdinand Marcos.
“Siguro very busy naman siya, pero alam mo when I actually texted him, he responded right away. Ibig sabihin, nawawala sa isip niya dahil ang dami-dami niyang problema. You really have to remind him,” she said.
In February last year, Aquino signed Republic Act 10368, which seeks to distribute P10 billion in funds from the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses to Martial Law human rights victims.
The law requires the President to form a panel to process claims of the human rights victims, but Aquino has not done so until now.
The compensation board, which will be attached to the CHR, is tasked to receive, evaluate, processe and investigate applications for claims.
Draft, database
Rosales further said that she expects the claims board to come up with the implementing rules and regulations of the Marcos compensation law by March.
She added that even before the forming of the panel, the CHR has already starting taking steps to expedite the process of getting compensation for Martial Law human rights victims.
Myrna Jimenez, CHR’s Martial Law Files Project manager, for instance, is currently spearheading the process of identifying legitimate claimants for the compensation.
“We’re just doing our homework. Hindi naman natin pwedeng hintayin pa iyon. Even without the board, the CHR should be identifying victims of human rights violations,” Jimenez said in a separate interview.
She added that her group, in cooperation with the Swiss government and the National Archives of the Philippines, has already been going over declassified military files and old newspaper clippings to create a database of human rights victims during the Marcos era.
Rosales, for her part, said her commission is also preparing a rough draft of the implementing rules and regulations of the Marcos compensation law to be presented to the claims board once it has been organized. — KBK, GMA News
