Philippines warns UN over rights

THE Philippines’ top diplomat warned the United Nations yesterday not to “weaponise” human rights and urged it to send an impartial investigator to probe President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly anti-drug war.

The Philippines’ human rights record was raised at aUN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva this week, with Iceland Foreign Minister Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson urging Manila on Monday to accept a visit from the UN special rapporteur.

Duterte was elected largely on a pledge to kill tens of thousands of criminals, and has presided over a narcotics crackdown rights monitors describe as amounting to crimes against humanity.

Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told the council yesterday Manila was ready to cooperate, but called for fairness.

“Send anyone except one who has already prejudged us, and who, by any measure, cannot be considered independent and objective,” he said. “Let us in this regard take to heart our secretary-general’s warning yesterday not to politicise – may I even say weaponise – human rights.”

Philippine police said they have killed 4,021 drug suspects who resisted arrest, while human rights groups estimate more than 12,000 deaths in all.

Cayetano said some civil rights monitors had unjustly portrayed the Philippines and “politicised and weaponised the issue”.

“Human rights becomes a human wrong when the ridiculous assertion is taken seriously that drugs are harmless, that their effects are benign at best and passing at worst, and that taking the most vigorous measures to stop the evil trade constitutes genocide. That puts drug dealers and drug pushers on the same moral level as the victims [of ] holocausts.”