Government on UN visit: Write us a letter

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang yesterday asked the human rights bodies of the United Nations to relay in a formal letter their wish to be invited to the Philippines instead of sending messages through the media.

“The UN, its human rights bodies, should go through the correct process, the correct protocol. It should not go through the media,” Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said over dzRB yesterday.

President Duterte has criticized the UN and its officials for “meddling” in the internal affairs of the government.

The UN has been reacting to the reported extrajudicial killings in the government’s drug war since Duterte assumed office on June 30.

As of Saturday, the Philippine National Police (PNP) reported a total of 1,138 drug personalities killed out of 18,382 anti-illegal drug operations conducted nationwide from July 1 to Sept. 17.

Independent counts already pegged the deaths at more than 3,000 people, a majority of whom were killed by unknown assailants.

The PNP also reported the arrest of 17,319 persons who are allegedly involved in the drug trade and the surrender of 714,217 under Project Tokhang. Of those who surrendered, 53,017 are identified as drug peddlers while 661,200 are classified as drug users.

As of Saturday, policemen visited 1,029,328 houses to ask people to either surrender or to stop using or peddling of illegal drugs under Project Tokhang.

Last Thursday, self-confessed hit man Edgar Matobato appeared at a Senate hearing and claimed that Duterte and his son Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte asked his group to kill about 1,000 people from 1988 to 2013.

Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said Friday that Matobato’s detailed testimony are “very serious allegations” that require an independent investigation that could be headed by the UN.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein also criticized Duterte, saying Duterte’s statements of scorn for international human rights law “display a striking lack of understanding of our human rights institutions and the principles which keep societies safe.”

He also said that he “strongly encourages the Philippine to extend an invitation to the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.”

Duterte allies: Don’t use ‘extrajudicial killings’

Meanwhile, Duterte’s allies in the House of Representatives agreed not to use the term “extrajudicial killing” in congressional hearings.

Instead, members of the committee on public order and safety will use the term “death under investigation” as enunciated by Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa.

This was after Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, chairman of the committee on public order and safety, approved the motion of Deputy Speaker Gwendolyn Garcia of Cebu who questioned the use of the term extrajudicial killings in the absence of death penalty in the country.

“I am really curious what the definition of extrajudicial killing is because ‘extrajudicial’ means outside of the parameters of a judicial killing. But do we have such a thing as judicial killing in the Philippines?” she said.

She noted that the law on lethal injection, Republic Act 8177, was “repealed” by Republic Act 9346 in 2006, during the term of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when capital punishment for heinous crimes was reverted to life imprisonment.

Chief Supt. Camilo Pancratius Cascolan, acting director of the PNP Directorate for Operations, maintained that the PNP investigates all kinds of killings.

“We do not tolerate any kind of illegal police operations,” he said. – With Delon Porcalla