Cayetano slams US report citing drug war killings as top human rights concern in PH

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano guaranteed the global community concerned with the Philippines’s human rights situation that while the country continues the campaign against the proliferation of illegal drugs, human rights will be upheld.

This came after the US State Department released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017, in which it said that extrajudicial killings in the Duterte administrations drug war remain the top human rights concern.

“Extrajudicial killings have been the chief human rights concern in the country for many years and, after a sharp rise with the onset of the anti-drug campaign in 2016, they continued in 2017,” the report read.

In response to this, Cayetano said in a statement, “We assure the international community that in the conduct of our campaign, we will remain guided by the rule of law embodied in our Constitution, which also enshrines the country’s long-standing tradition of upholding human rights.”

He added, “We would like to emphasize that our vigorous campaign against criminality, most especially against the illegal drug trade, seeks to promote the welfare and protect the human rights of all Filipinos, to save lives, to preserve families, to protect communities and stop the country from sliding into a narco-state.”

Cayetano stressed that the Philippines is a sovereign nation with a “fully functioning democracy led by a legitimately elected government that is getting things done for the Filipino people.”

“We do not need others who think they know better than us Filipinos to tell us what to do,” he added.

(DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 04/ 23 /18)