Philippines: We’re not ‘Wild, Wild West of Asia’

Manila’s top diplomat has accused Human Rights Watch of deceiving the international community by making it appear “that the Philippines has become the Wild, Wild West of Asia where we just kill people left and right.”

Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano demanded an apology yesterday from the US-based rights group for reporting a larger number of drug suspects killed in President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs to back up a statement that human rights in the Philippines “is at its worst.”

‘Just a noisy bunch’

Cayetano said Human Rights Watch falsely asserted that more than 12,000 people have been killed in the government’s crackdown when the national police have recorded 3,968 deaths of suspects in more than 80,600 anti-drug operations since Duterte took power in 2016 until last November.

Meanwhile, Duterte told Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, heavily criticised abroad for failing to stand up for largely stateless Rohingya Muslims, that she shouldn’t bother about rights activists as they are “just a noisy bunch”.

– Reuters