DFA chief: Filipinos feel safer due to drug war
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano claimed anew yesterday that Filipinos feel safer now due to the government’s campaign against illegal drugs as he decried the latest criticisms of international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Cayetano sought an apology from HRW for supposedly misleading the international community on the real human rights situation in the Philippines.
“If Human Rights Watch decides to take a closer look, it would discover that a majority of Filipinos actually feel much safer now as a result of our government’s efforts to address the problem of illegal drugs,” he said in a statement.
“It is about time Human Rights Watch stops politicizing the war we are waging against illegal drugs at the expense of the Philippines and the Filipino people. And it owes the Philippines and the rest of the international community not just an explanation but also an apology for making unfair accusations by skewing the real numbers just so it could advance its own agenda,” he added.
Cayetano issued the statement after HRW deputy director for Asia Phelim Kine called the secretary the “chief denier” of the Duterte administration.
“Cayetano’s groundless accusations come as no surprise, given his record as Duterte’s chief denier of the growing evidence linking state-sanctioned killings to the anti-drug campaign,” Kine said.
“They are the latest manifestation of the government’s distraction strategy that appears aimed to sideline domestic and international demands for accountability for what non-governmental organizations and media outlets estimate is a drug war death toll of more than 12,000 people over the past 18 months,” he added.
The foreign affairs secretary earlier challenged the HRW to prove that the war on drugs already claimed the lives of 12,000 people.
He noted that only 3,968 drug suspects were killed in 80,683 police operations from July 2016 to November 2017.
“The claims of Human Rights Watch that there are more than 12,000 victims in the campaign against illegal drugs could not be possible since this number failed to take into consideration the number of homicides and murders that have also been taking place all across the country,” Cayetano said.