IPU OFFICIALS DISPLEASED WITH GONZALEZS HOSTILE REMARKS

The three officials of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) are very disappointed over the disparaging remarks made by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez about their mission to look into alleged persecution of leftist party-list representatives to Congress, led by Crispin Beltran (Anak-Pawis) and Satur Ocampo (Bayan-Muna).

They are saddened over the statement of the justice secretary, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) said.

Pimentel said Gonzalez failed to observe the elementary norm of courtesy when he told the IPU officials to go home when they presented him with an IPU resolution seeking the release of Beltran and sought his help in persuading the Arroyo government to heed the resolution.

The IPU officials IPU Secretary General Anders Johnsson of Sweden; Canadian Senator Sharon Carstairs, Chairman of IPU Committee on Human Rights; and Committee Secretary Ingerborg Schwarz paid a courtesy call on Secretary Gonzalez at his office Thursday. They were dispatched to the Philippines by virtue of a motion of the IPU assembly composed of parliamentarians from 143 countries after the Arroyo government ignored the IPU resolution asking for Beltrans release.

Pimentel said Gonzalezs repulsive remarks to the IPU officials was contrary to the assurance of Speaker de Venecia, Jr. and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita that the government would fully cooperate with the IPU team in their inquiry into of the cases of Beltran and Ocampo and other members of the so-called Batasan 6.

The justice secretarys use of kanto-boy language in dealing with the foreign dignitaries is irresponsible and deplorable. Even if he frowned on the purpose of the IPU officials in coming to the country, he should have restrained himself from telling them their presence is unwelcome, the opposition leader said.

Noting that it has become the justice secretarys habit to insult foreign visitors investigating human rights abuses in the country, Pimentel recalled that Gonzalez berated United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston by calling him a mere mustacho or errand boy of the world body while investigating cases of extra-judicial killings of political activists and working journalists here last February.

Pimentel said what Gonzalez probably did not know that when he tried to humiliate the UN special rapporteur and the three IPU officials, it was not only themselves but the organizations they were representing that were at the receiving end of his diatribe.

Despite the fact that Gonzalez is becoming more and more an embarrassment to the Arroyo government, Pimentel said he does not expect the justice secretary to be reprimanded by his superiors in Malacañang because what matters to them most is the loyalty of the Cabinet members and other administration officials.

Pimentel said that it is perhaps about time for Secretary General to quit over his shameful behavior. But he said Malacañang is not expected to go along with that move because it needs sycophants like him to defend the President from her critics.