Sublime paradox
Critics of President Rodrigo Duterte have increased in number but raised the same issues that have been rehashed many times over. Political harassment, human rights violations, extrajudicial killings (EJK) and befriending China, among others.
Last week Agnes Callamard, a rapporteur (reporter) of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights (CHR) sneaked into the Philippines with the help of the local Commission on Human Rights and Free Legal Assistance Group. Callamard tucked along a “Dr. Carl Hart” obviously to buttress her claim that “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) does not damage the brain of the user.
Earlier, Vice President Leni Robredo proposed to decriminalize the use of shabu, which the Duterte government wants to eliminate as the substance has hooked millions and have been said to be driving addicts to commit heinous crimes and violence.
The presence of Callamard was timed with the meeting of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. In her speech, Callamard negated the World Health Organization findings on the danger of shabu and had her sidekick Hart, who was introduced as a doctor, to confirm it. She even demanded that death penalty should not be reimposed in the Philippines.
Philippine CHR Chair Jose Gascon, the appointee of past president Benigno Aquino III, was ebullient when he found an ally in Calamard and Hart. And I can only imagine how VP Robredo is smiling from ear to ear.
From her prison cell Sen. Leila de Lima, a very privileged detainee, issued a statement that the President should answer for the death of the victims of extrajudicial killings. Not to be left out, an aging but still garrulous ex-CHR chair Etta Rosales came out from the cold to denounce, who else, but their common pet peeve Duterte.
But the cabal of anti-Duterte critics cannot celebrate despite the magma of issues they raised. As Callamard was speaking, US President Donald Trump was talking on the phone with President Duterte requesting him to persuade Chinese President XI Jinping to still the nerves of North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un.
Acting as a go between the two most powerful men in the globe, Duterte called on his friend Xi to convey Trump’s message. Trump is a believer of Duterte’s all-out war against drugs and for obvious reason. The candidate Trump had proposed to put up a concrete wall along the border of the US and Mexico not only to deter illegal Mexican nationals looking jobs but also to curb the entry of illegal drugs to the US.
Before Calamard and her doctor Hart could go on a honeymoon as Duterte suggested, the Social Weather Station came out with its recent survey. To the chagrin of the President’s critics, Duterte’s trust rating was +70 for excellent while that of VP Robredo took a nose dive, with 15 percent chipped off from her previous rating although it remained good anyway.
It is a paradox, indeed, that some characters want to crucify Duterte in the International Criminal Court and want him impeached while his people extol him like they never did to any of their leaders before.--