Palace insists: EJK definition does not cover drug suspects

PRESIDENTIAL Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. on Monday, December 11, reminded Senator Leila de Lima and Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chairperson Jose Luis Martin Gascon that they were signatories to an administrative order that excluded criminals, like drug suspects, from the definition of extrajudicial killings (EJKs).

Instead of criticizing President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs, De Lima and Gascon should be defending it because both of them were cognizant that there were no EJKs in this bloody crackdown.

Roque noted that Administrative Order (AO) 35 signed in 2013 by then President Benigno Aquino III, along with De Lima and Gascon, clearly states that EJKs are killings of victims who were members of either political, environmental, agrarian, or labor organizations; advocates of such causes; media practitioners; or apparently mistaken or identified.

He added that perpetrators of EJKs, who might be state agents or non-state agents, had a “deliberate intent to kill” victims because of “actual or perceived, membership advocacy, or profession.”

The presidential spokesman further said that AO 35 also provides that killings related to common criminals and the perpetration of their crimes “shall be addressed by other appropriate mechanisms within the justice system.”

Roque thus emphasized that De Lima and Gascon, who were among the signatories of AO 35, should not denigrate Duterte’s drug war.

“How is it now that when drug pushers or users die, Senator De Lima and Chairman Gascon insist that these are EJKs? Their sudden about-face is baffling, given that these drug pushers and users are not members or affiliated with any political, environmental, agrarian, or labor organization. These drug pushers or users are likewise not journalists,” he said in a statement sent to Palace reporters.

“If the two believed then that the AO they adopted was correct and in accordance with the law, they should be the first to defend the Duterte administration’s campaign against illegal drugs because the AO 35 signed by former President Benigno Aquino III is correct,” Roque added.

Roque said the two public officials’ “hypocrisies” should end.