International advocacy group Human Rights Watch thinks President Rodrigo Duterte sent mixed messages in his State of the Nation Address yesterday, Jul 25.
In a statement, Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said that Duterte’s 100-minute speech “was laced with confusing and sometimes contradictory messages.”
Why was it confusing? Kline said that the government’s unwillingness to investigate into the surge of extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals and drug offenders symbolizes “a critical failure” to “defend rule of law and to protect the rights and freedoms of all Filipinos.”
In his SONA, President Duterte pledged to uplift human rights. He said that his administration shall be sensitive to the “State’s obligations to promote, protect, and fulfill the human rights of our citizens…even as the rule of law shall at all times prevail.”
However, the President also made it clear that his administration’s fight against drugs, criminality and corruption will be “relentless and sustained.”
President Duterte told persons of authority: “Double your efforts. Triple them, if need be. We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars or below the ground, if they so wish.”
Kline said that “Duterte implicitly voiced support for such unlawful brutality by stating that police can rightly put illegal drug suspects ‘below the ground’ if necessary.”
“President Duterte must publicly recognize that respect for rule of law and fulfilling the human rights of Filipinos extends to all Filipinos, including criminal suspects and those implicated in the drug trade,” Kline added.
According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s “kill list”, 365 suspected drug users and criminals were put “below the ground” between Jun 30 and Jul 25.
Human Rights Watch is hoping that Duterte’s administration will also produce “policy initiatives that will provide tangible support for that positive rhetoric.”
“But as long as President Duterte turns a blind eye to — or implicitly or explicitly encourages — summary killings, the fundamental right to life of all Filipinos is at risk from potentially random extrajudicial violence,” the statement said.
The administration’s anti-crime and anti-illegal drug operations are often criticised by human rights advocates.
Duterte said that the issue should not be used to destroy the Philippines.
“Human rights must work to uplift human dignity. But human rights cannot be used as a shield or an excuse to destroy the country,” the President said in his SONA. With reports from ABS-CBN News
