UN rights conclusions ‘faulty,’ insists Philippines
MANILA: A senior Malacanang Palace official on Saturday insisted that the UN human rights agency’s conclusions on the country’s violent and bloody war in illegal drugs were “faulty,” pointing out that the government has always adhered to the rule of law and its international obligations.
Harry Roque, the presidential spokesman, was reacting to the no-holds barred report on alleged rampant human rights violations from the Duterte’s war on drugs, particularly extra judicial killings by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The government cannot implement the agency’s recommendations “given the faulty conclusions on which they were premised,” said Roque, a human rights lawyer, before he agreed to become the president’s spokesman.
The Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) also issued a statement, noting that the government undertakes a whole-of-nation approach which balances law enforcement and public health strategies.
“None of these permits abuse of authority. The Philippine government does not condone extrajudicial killings,” the DDB stressed.
In her report, Michelle Bachelet, the UN commissioner for human rights, minced no words in assailing President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte as she pointed out: “There has been a near impunity for these killings and with only one conviction for the killings in a police operation since 2016.”
Duterte did not comment on the UN agency’s report but he renewed his threat to kill drug dealers, following the arrest of a Chinese nnational who yielded 76kg (crystal meth) worth $10 million in Bulacan province on Thursday.
“If you destroy my country distributing $10 million worth of shabu all throught my country, I will kill you,” Duterte reiterated in a televised meeting with cabinet officials in his hometown of Davao City on Thursday but aired on Saturday morning in Metro Manila.
“I’d like the Chinese government to know that there are many ways of fighting corruption. But one of them that really pisses me no end, these are things that destroy my country, the human resource, my children and your children,” he said in a mix of Filipino and English.