Transcript of Sen. Miriam Defensor interview after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Optional Protocol
to the Convention Against Torture

After the break, I will sponsor the OPCAT. The gist of our sponsorship speech is that we will have to build hundreds of jails all around the country. Statistics show that there is simply unacceptable overcrowding in our jails. I am very happy because more jails means more crooks in jails. It is remarkable that members of the military and law enforcement were unanimous in expressing support for this optional protocol to the convention against torture. This means that they are very educated on our constitution because this is no less than a constitutional provision.

The optional protocol requires the country to observe international standards or guidelines for the detention of prisoners or for the service of sentence after court proceedings. We can no long push people in a very small compound and guard them at the rate of about one guard to every forty prisoner, because the international standard is one guard for every seven prisoners. We are far below standard so that is why when we concur with the additional protocol, we will file a declaration of deferment, that is to say we will request the UN authority to give us three years so that we can upgrade our prison facilities before the subcommittee on torture will be able to come to our country any time at any place and make their visit. Visitorial powers are very important in the observance of human rights because the sheer process of observation will naturally change what is being observed. Our penologists already know what the global standards are, and the mere intention to visit will already make them scramble to live up to the global standards.

OPCAT was ratified by the president in 2006, for years ago. In the meantime there was a working group to assimilate all the agencies concerned like local governments, Commission on Human Rights, the Presidential Commission on Human Rights, and other law enforcement agencies that are empowered to detain prisoners such as the military, BJMP, and other agencies like the immigration bureau.

On Pope Benedict XVI's advise to Filipinos to choose upright political leaders

I am afraid that the population of that kind of human being is substandard if there is anybody alive in the Philippines who live up to standards of honesty. You can expect that at least hundreds of people will be telling lies during the campaign because everybody in this country is against graft and corruption but the country is one of the highest rated corrupt countries in the world. Therefore the conclusion could only be that our people are very facile with their orations in public but commit corruption secretly. That is why I find it extremely hard to remain in government because here we engage in doublethink--we say one thing and exercise another. The moment I step on the toes on vested interest I am immediately subjected to character assassination which has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

One of the consequences of the Papal statement is this: I think that any tandem for president and vice president should include at least a lawyer. People always say that lawyers are fond of technicalities which do not serve any purpose, but they do. The entire discipline of law is just one long technicality. That is why you have to learn all the technicalities in four years' time. There are so many ways in technically evading the law. I am afraid that if we have a tandem that does not have a law graduate, that would be a very bad precursor for the Philippine state of law and order because non-lawyers do not understand how the legal system works, for example the system of equal justice for everybody. They think that justice should be equal to everybody except themselves and their families. That is a mindset that you cannot legislate; that is a mindset that can only be set by leadership by example. That is the problem.

Why don't you ask our leaders to submit to an IQ test on corruption so that you will know what they think is corrupt? For example, the attitude that they are free to steal money and other funds because when they run for election they will be giving back the same money to their constituency. That is a common attitude of politicians. In their minds they are not committing a crime or even a sin because they think the end justifies the means. According to that view, it is all a question of recycling money. First it is the process of theft or robbery, then it becomes a process of distributive justice, distributing the money to the people. So, I am afraid there is no tried and tested rule of detecting dishonesty if the standard is the official statements of the candidate, there is no hope for the country because everybody is against corruption.

Let us ask every candidate for president: What is your record in stopping corruption? No matter how small the office, no matter how tiny or significant the amount of money you save for the government, give me one illustration of your commitment to corruption when you fought corruption as you saw it, at risk to your political career. That should be the question, and not what do you think of this. We are way past behind that.

The Pope will have to live his life in prayerful imploration to the Almighty if he wants to stop corruption in the Philippines. He might not live long enough.

On Sec. Ebdane's qualification as a presidential candidate

Since he is public works secretary he should be able to point to the roads and the sewerage systems in flood prone areas that he has achieved. In that respect there might be a deficiency in his curriculum vitae because you have an entire typhoon to disprove any evidence he might present in his favor. I will vote for any president who can prevent the Philippine archipelago from sinking into the Pacific Ocean.