Palace says President Rodrigo Duterte never told police to withhold details of activist attacks from the Commission on Human Rights.

MALACANANG denied claims that President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP) to withhold information from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) regarding the killings of human rights defenders and activists.

“There is no truth to the alleged report that President Rodrigo Roa Duterte instructed the PNP not to release or share their information to the CHR regarding the recent attacks against right defenders and activists,” Palace spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement yesterday.

“As an officer of the court, being a lawyer, the president adheres to the rule of law and he wants the wheels of justice to grind for the sake of the victims of abuse and violence and their families.”

The statement comes after CHR Commissioner Leah Tanodra-Armamento, in an interview on ANC’s Early Edition, claimed that the commission’s investigation on the killing of 89 activists was stalled due to Duterte’s supposed order, as well the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Unfortunately, there is an order from the president himself not to give the Commission on Human Rights the data,” Armamento said. CHR has been probing the 89 killings of human rights activists and defenders from 2017 to 2019.

According to Roque, the Duterte administration was “equally interested to unmask those behind these brazen killings, which are being blamed on state agents”.

“And we will leave no stone unturned to put these people behind bars,” he added.