Send mission to investigate EJKs, De Lima asks UNHRC

Sen. Leila de Lima has called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to send an independent factfinding mission to the Philippines to investigate the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) related to the government’s allout war on drugs.

In her letter to the UNHRC memberstates last Sept. 5, De Lima reiterated her support for civil society groups and multilateral organizations in urging the UNHRC to take “concrete and sustainable forms of action” on human rights issues in the Philippines.

“There is urgency to create such a fact-finding mission or a commission of inquiry at the level of the UNHRC to address the human rights calamity in my country,” she said as she requested for “urgent action” on what she described as a human rights crisis in the Philippines.

The letter was sent as the UNHRC starts its 39th session this week.

De Lima urged member-states to pass a resolution for a fact-finding mission “after credible investigation at the domestic level has been effectively blocked, if not met with indifference, (by) local authorities.”

De Lima, a critic of the Duterte administration, has been detained at the Philippine National Police headquarters on what she branded were fabricated illegal drugs charges.

The independent international fact-finding mission must be urgently constituted and dispatched to establish facts and circumstances of EJKs and other human rights violations in the government’s war on drugs, she said.

De Lima said the proposed UNHRC mission should help ensure that victims of EJKs and human rights abuses will find justice and that their perpetrators and masterminds will be held accountable for their crimes.

“There is added cogency in this call considering that the killings continue, and Duterte has vowed in his recent State of the Nation Address that his drug war would remain relentless and chilling as on the day it begun,” she said.

Citing reports from various agencies, she said the National Bureau of Investigation claimed it was investigating only 37 drug war-related killings, and the Department of Justice said it was only able to investigate 71 cases, wherein only 19 reached the courts for prosecution.

In addition, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the PNP has no public report on whether it is even handling any sincere investigation of EJKs, which should be part of its mandate.

“By not conducting prompt, thorough and effective investigation into the extrajudicial killings under the so-called war on drugs, the Philippine government is in a clear breach of its duty under international law,” De Lima said.

Under international law, she said states have the obligation to investigate EJKs and provide effective remedy by competent national institutions for these violations.

However, De Lima continued, the present Philippine government has unilaterally withdrawn from its membership to the Rome Statute/International Criminal Court (ICC), an issue that is now a subject of petition before the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

“His (President Duterte) government even refuses to cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms. Worse, he shamelessly disrespects UN officials. The Philippines did not fully accept over half of the recommendations it received during its Universal Periodic Review at the UNHRC in 2017,” she added.

She also noted how the then UN high commissioner and other UN special rapporteurs have been threatened and verbally attacked when they expressed their grave concerns over the human rights situation in the Philippines.

According to De Lima, the only major investigation on EJKs that took place was the Senate inquiry in 2016, which she said she initiated and conducted.

De Lima lamented that after Duterte’s allies ousted her as chair of the justice committee, the public hearings were abruptly concluded with a “dubious report,” which ruled that killings were not state-sponsored.