De Lima on PNP's drug war remark: Mass atrocities are not rehashed narratives
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Leila de Lima on Saturday called out the Philippine National Police for “downplaying” extrajudicial killings resulting from the drug war under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“EJKs are not a mere product of imagination, and more so, the stories of the victims of these mass atrocities are not rehashed narratives,” the detained senator said in a release.
PNP spokesperson Police Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac last week said the International Criminal Court is being fed recycled information in order to strengthen the case against the administration's war on drugs.
“The rehashed narratives of alleged abuses remain to be unfounded and devoid of truth from the beginning but had been repeatedly told and retold over and over to make (them) sound factual,” Banac said.
ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in 2018, undeterred by the Philippines' formal withdrawal from the international body, launched a preliminary investigation following complaints that the alleged drug war has resulted in thousands of EJKs.
De Lima, who is part of the opposition, said the victims have been permanently silenced and robbed of “the chance to defend one’s self in proper court.”
“People are getting killed arbitrarily and without due process, and they are not just statistics and fictional stories – lives were lost, dreams were shattered, and families are displaced because of the abuses perpetrated by state authorities,” she said.
There are more than 6,000 recorded killings in the government's drug war as of 2019, but human rights advocates claim the death toll is already approaching 30,000.
A study from the Columbia Journalism School also found that police figures underreport drug war killings.
De Lima said the country should not turn away from the bloodshed and instead call for justice to the thousands of drug war victims.
“Walang dapat ipagkibit-balikat dito. Libo-libong mga maralitang Pilipino na pinaslang nang walang kalaban-laban at mga inosenteng bata na pinagkaitan ng kinabukasan ang pinag-uusapan dito,” she said.
(This isn’t something to be shrugged off. We’re talking about thousands of impoverished Filipinos who were brutally murdered and many innocent children left deprived of their futures.)
“Hangga’t may mga nasasayang na buhay at mga niyurakang karapatan dahil sa palpak na War on Drugs ng rehimeng Duterte, hindi tayo dapat manahimik at mapagod na isalaysay sa buong mundo ang naratibo ng mga biktima at pagdurusa ng kanilang pamilya.”
(As long as lives are wasted and rights are disregarded due to the Duterte administration’s failed War on Drugs, we refuse to remain silent or get tired of narrating the accounts of victims and their grieving families to the entire world.)
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