Drug war: Rights body gets $20 budget

Lawmakers in the Philippines have voted to give an annual budget of just 1,000 pesos ($20; £15) to the public body investigating the country’s controversial war on drugs. The cut to the budget of the Commission on Human Rights was supported by a margin of 119 to 32 in Congress. Speaker of the House Pantaleon […]

Lawmakers in the Philippines have voted to give an annual budget of just 1,000 pesos ($20; £15) to the public body investigating the country’s controversial war on drugs.

The cut to the budget of the Commission on Human Rights was supported by a margin of 119 to 32 in Congress.

Speaker of the House Pantaleon Alvarez labelled the commission “useless”.

But critics say the move is punishment for the body’s staunch criticism of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drugs war.

The Commission on Human Rights, which has been investigating the killings, initially requested a budget of 1.72bn pesos ($34m; £25m) for 2018, but the government proposed less than half of that.

On the second reading of the legislation, Congress voted for the figure to be cut to just 1,000 pesos, a massive cut from 2017’s budget of 749m pesos.