Pubdate: Sat, 20 Aug 2016
Source: Philippine Star (Philippines)
Copyright: PhilSTAR Daily Inc. 2016
Contact:  http://www.philstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/622

PALACE TO UN: DUTERTE NOT COMMITTING INT'L CRIME

Malacanang yesterday criticized as "baseless and reckless" a United 
Nations statement that President Duterte's bloody war on drugs 
amounted to a crime under international law.

Duterte's chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo told AFP the 
administration was not behind the extrajudicial killings targeting 
alleged criminal suspects, challenging UN human rights experts to 
visit the Philippines and investigate.

Two UN rights experts said Thursday that Duterte's directives calling 
on law enforcers and the public to kill suspected drug traffickers 
"amount to incitement to violence and killing, a crime under 
international law."

"When you are in New York or somewhere else, 10,000 kilometers or 
miles away from the Philippines and then you make such judgments, 
that's recklessness," Panelo said.

"Those statements are misplaced and baseless, and they better come 
over and see for themselves the real situation."

Duterte, 71, won May elections in a landslide on a promise to kill 
tens of thousands of suspected criminals to prevent the Philippines 
from becoming a narco-state. He has offered security officials 
bounties for the bodies of drug dealers.

When he took office on June 30, Duterte told a crowd in Manila: "If 
you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting 
their parents to do it would be too painful."

However, Panelo said the UN should not take such statements seriously.

"He is just asking the public to cooperate with the campaign."

Duterte's spokesmen have said his statements are just hyperbole but 
police have reported killing more than 600 people since he took office.

The nation's largest broadcaster ABS-CBN has put the death toll at 
over 1,100, which includes reported vigilante killings where bodies 
turn up on streets with cardboard signs branding them as drug pushers.

Panelo insisted police only killed suspects in self-defense while 
other deaths were the work of drug syndicates who feared their 
members would surrender and cooperate with authorities.

"How can you stop the killing of members of the syndicates? You 
cannot be guarding them all the time," Panelo said in response to the 
UN experts' call.

International and local rights groups, some lawmakers and church 
leaders in the mainly Catholic nation have condemned the killings. 
The Senate is set to launch an investigation next week into possible 
rights violations in police operations.

Still, Duterte's police chief Ronald dela Rosa said Friday law 
enforcers would not be deterred and the campaign was just starting.

"It's a low ( point) when we are being investigated but we go on... 
we never back down."

- - AFP
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom