{"id":158281,"date":"2018-03-27T05:47:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T09:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=158281"},"modified":"2018-03-27T07:04:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T11:04:37","slug":"solon-rights-groups-hit-malacanang-remark-involving-human-rights-groups-drug-lords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/03\/27\/solon-rights-groups-hit-malacanang-remark-involving-human-rights-groups-drug-lords\/","title":{"rendered":"Solon, rights groups hit Malaca\u00f1ang for calling latter ‘unwitting tools of drug lords’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Photo:<\/a>
FILE: Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate (Photo<\/a>: Karlos Ysagani Zarate\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Critics hit the Palace and Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano for their \u201cirresponsible\u201d speculation and statement about human rights groups being \u201cunwitting tools\u201d of drug lords.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attacks against the President\u2019s war on drugs have been vicious and non-stop. We, therefore, do not discount the possibility that some human rights groups have become unwitting tools of drug lords to hinder the strides made by the administration,” Presidential spokesperson and adviser on human rights Harry Roque, Jr. said on Monday, March 26.<\/p>\n

This echoed Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary \u2019s statement about non-government organizations (NGOs) in a news conference last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at the whole human rights mechanism that\u2019s supposed to be there to assist the government in fulfilling its human rights obligation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnwittingly some of the NGOs are being used by drug lords. That\u2019s the reality,\u201d Cayetano added.<\/p>\n

A lawmaker from the House of Representatives believes that these remarks endanger the lives of human rights groups and advocates.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Yan talaga ang mangyayari d\u2019yan. Parang nilalagyan ng marka ang noo mo<\/em> na \u2018you are a target dahil kasabwat ka<\/em>\u2019(That is what will really happen. It is as if you marked on your forehead that \u2018you are a target because you are a conspirator,\u2019)\u201dBayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate said in an interview with DZMM on March 27.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also denounced this through a statement on March 26, saying that these allegations are \u201cmore than just gratuitous slurs aimed at undermining the integrity\u201d of human rights activists in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

It branded the Duterte administration for having \u201csystematic attacks on the rule of law\u201d that human rights activists are battling.<\/p>\n

Calling it a \u2018familiar government tactic,\u2019 HRW said,\u201cPublicly linking human rights groups with \u2018drug lords\u2019 constitutes a sinister veiled threat in a country in which government-compiled \u2018watch lists\u2019 of suspected drug users and drug dealer have been linked to many of the drug war\u2019s thousands of victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, another human rights group Karapatan said, \u201cMalaca\u00f1ang places the blame on human rights organizations for the Duterte administration’s failure to curb the illegal drug problem and accuses them of smearing the country’s reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn case Harry Roque and Alan Cayetano haven\u2019t noticed, Duterte did that all by himself, in a path of tyrannical megalomania and unparalleled self-destruction,\u201d Karapatan added.<\/p>\n

The group also said that the Palace is attempting to \u201cjustify a massive Tokhang-style killing of activists\u201d or evade accountability from rights mechanisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critics hit the Palace and Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano for their \u201cirresponsible\u201d speculation and statement about human rights …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":158311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[3374,42736,49093,15350,49094,12364],"class_list":["post-158281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-alan-peter-cayetano","tag-carlos-zarate","tag-drug-lord","tag-harry-roque-jr","tag-human-rights-groups","tag-human-rights-watch","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}