Duterte’s ‘very good’ rating on human rights questioned
Human rights groups are questioning President Duterte’s “very good” rating in human rights based on results of the latest Social Weather Stations survey.
Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan, frowned at the President’s rating on human rights in the survey.
“Surveys are surveys, but the reality on the ground cannot be simply erased by satisfaction ratings. Urban poor communities are being subjected to killings without any significant employment opportunities, demolitions continue to abound in favor of private firms, our farmers still do not own the land they till, our workers are still trapped in the cycle of contractualization, lumad and Moro communities are still militarized and have become more and more at risk because of continuing fascist state policies. Change may have been real for the rich but the same injustice is meted out to the rest of us,” she said.
She cited the case of lumad communities in Lianga, Surigao that were again dislaced by militarization and threats of aerial bombing last July.
The lumads in Lianga were first displaced in Septemto ber 2015 after the Magahat paramilitary group under the 36th Infantry Battalion of the Army killed lumad leaders Dionel Camos and Aurelio Sinzo and executive director Emerito Samarca of the Lumad School Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development.
The lumads returned to their community in Lianga in September 2016 only be displaced again last July.
“It has been two years and we are nowhere closer to prosecuting these murderers. It has been two years and lumad communities continue to be endangered by military operations and targeted by counterinsurgency programs. Paramilitaries, protected by soldiers and Duterte, still roam around communities, killing and harassing indigenous peoples and peasants,” Palabay said.
“This tells us that from (former president Benigno) Aquino to Duterte, change has not arrived for the poor and the oppressed.
“If adherence to people’s rights is the basis for these ratings, if the number of Filipinos killed and the number of communities bombed and displaced are taken into account, then Duterte’s performance is a staggering failure,” she added.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) lamented that while Duterte admitted that his bloody war against drugs is unwinnable, he did not express remorse for its thousands of victims, including dozens of children, that the President dismissed as “collateral damage.”
“Duterte told a gathering of military personnel that his promise to eradicate methamphetamine use – known as shabu in the Philippines – won’t be fulfilled, that this (drug use) really will not end. He instead echoed the message of his July 24 state of the nation address by insisting the campaign will be ‘unremitting as it will be unrelenting’,” said Phelim Kine, deputy director of HRW Asia Division.
HRW noted that Duterte was elected because of a campaign platform that advocated violent measures, including killings of criminal suspects and to solve drugs, criminality and corruption in three to six months of taking office.
But in January, Duterte declared that anti-drug operations would continue until the end of his term in 2022. “He also recently backpedaled on his full-throated support for police killings of suspected drug users and drug dealers as proof of the ‘success’ of his campaign,” HRW said.
“Duterte’s questioning of death toll estimates coincides with an effort by both the government and the Philippine National Police in recent months to issue death toll statistics that are less than half of the official police figure of 7,000 drug war-related killings issued at the end of January. The government has frustrated efforts by media and other independent observers to maintain a verifiable and transparent tally of such deaths by issuing contradictory data,” Kine added.
Earlier in August, Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairman Chito Gascon said that the actual number of drug war killings is certainly higher than what is suggested by police.
“That means Filipinos face an indefinite and abusive ‘drug war’ pursued by a government unwilling to accurately document the human toll of that campaign,” Kine said.
Duterte slams critics anew
President Duterte shot back and asked his critics, especially the members of the Catholic church and human rights groups, why they did not raise a howl when drug abusers commit crimes as brutal as the killing of a family in Bulacan last June.
In a speech at the 11th founding anniversary celebration of the Eastern Mindanao Command at the Naval Station Felix Apolinario in Davao City Friday night, Duterte again attacked the CHR for pushing to investigate martial law in Mindanao on the second day of the military operations.
“‘Itong CHR kaaway ko. Dalawang araw na bakbakan pa lang sa Marawi, nag-isyu kaagad ng (This CHR is my enemy. The fighting in Marawi was just on its second day but they already issued a) statement that they were going to investigate in Marawi,” he said.
Duterte also said he is surprised that no priest or human rights activist cried for justice for the deaths of a family killed by a drug-crazed man when their groups were quick to criticize his drug war.
The President noted how his critics seemed not to care whenever government forces are killed in the fight against the Maute group that is linked to terrorist organization ISIS.
“When Marines were killed, nobody said ‘soldiers are pitiful, what would happen to their families and children’,” he said in Filipino.
“And then these bleeding hearts, most of them think they know better. They think that they can. These are the people who can never be elected. They are unelectable…They say there’s another way of dealing with the problem with the ISIS. How? Dare. How do you deal with the ISIS? They even kill children, my God!” he added.