Palace slams HRW anew over claims drug war ‘targets the poor’

MALACAÑANG on Monday dismissed as “blatant lie” the allegation by an official of international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) that President Rodrigo Duterte's war on illegal drugs only targets the poor.

Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella slammed HRW Deputy Asia Director Phelim Kine for claiming that Duterte had “finally acknowledged” that his drug war is “a war on the poor” that exposes his “contempt for the lives of the country's urban slum dwellers.”

While Abella admitted that the most prevalent drug in the Philippines is shabu, or dubbed as “poor man's cocaine,” he maintained that Duterte's war on illicit drug trade “is not targeted at any particular segment of society.”

The presidential spokesperson also guaranteed the safety and security of the Filipino people, citing that eight out of 10 of Filipinos living in Manila “now feel safer and more secured under his administration.”

“The supply, largely from outside the Philippines, is in great demand from users and distributors both coming from poor families. Poverty, however, does not justify the use and selling of shabu,” Abella said.

In a speech delivered Saturday in Bukidnon, Duterte reiterated that individuals linked to illegal drugs, including people belonging to the poor sector, will get killed if they do not stop their drug involvement.

The President maintained that his drug war will continue, until all drug dependents have been exterminated.

Responding to Duterte's remark, Kine on Sunday said the Chief Executive's “grotesque logic” to target the poor in the anti-drug campaign suggests that “he intends to continue this unlawful killing campaign indefinitely.”

“President Duterte has finally acknowledged what police “kill list” statistics have long made obvious: That his murderous “war on drugs” is in fact a war on the poor given that the vast majority of its more than 7,000 victims were urban slum dwellers – some of the poorest, most vulnerable and most marginalized citizens of the Philippines,” Kine said on Twitter.

“Duterte's admission ends the perverse fiction that he and his government have sought to perpetuate over the past nine months that the victims of the drug war – many of whose bodies are found on street corners wrapped in packing tape, riddled with bullets or perforated with stab wounds – have been drug lords,” he added.

Abella, however, said HRW, as well as other organizations criticizing Duterte, should be “more circumspect” about meddling in the Philippine affairs.

“Their lack of appreciation of the context and local reality show a deep insensitivity to other cultures,” he said.