{"id":161254,"date":"2018-04-23T07:26:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T11:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=161254"},"modified":"2018-04-24T01:29:15","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T05:29:15","slug":"palace-finds-us-state-department-report-inconsistent-with-trumps-remark-on-ph-drug-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/04\/23\/palace-finds-us-state-department-report-inconsistent-with-trumps-remark-on-ph-drug-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace finds US State Department report inconsistent with Trump\u2019s remark on PH drug war"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Malaca\u00f1ang on Monday, April 23, said it would prefer to hold on to the previous statements of United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump about the Philippines\u2019s war on drugs, after the US State Department report said \u201cextrajudicial killings have been the chief human rights concern in the country for many years.\u201d (ACE MORANDANTE\/PRESIDENIAL PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Malaca\u00f1ang on Monday, April 23, said it would prefer to hold on to the previous statements of United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump about the Philippines\u2019s war on drugs, after the US State Department\u00a0report said \u201cextrajudicial killings have been the chief human rights concern in the country for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a Palace briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said that it was not easy for him to reconcile the report of the US State Department and Trump\u2019s praises on President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s anti-illegal drug campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally heard the discussion between President Trump and President Duterte when they were here in the Philippines during the ASEAN Summit and I think I heard words coming from President Trump praising President Duterte including the war on drugs. If I am not mistaken, President Trump said he [Duterte] knows what he\u2019s doing in the Philippines,\u201d Roque explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I do not know how to reconcile the State Department report with the actual statement of the President. But for now, we\u2019re going with the statement of President Trump that we all heard from the mouth of President Trump,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In its \u201cReports on Human Rights Practices for 2017,\u201d the US State Department noted that \u201cconcerns about police impunity increased significantly following the sharp increase in police killings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government investigated a limited number of reported human rights abuses, including abuses by its own forces, paramilitaries, and insurgent and terrorist groups,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The annual report also said that Duterte \u201cpublicly rejected\u201d criticisms of police killings but said authorities would \u201cinvestigate any actions taken outside the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

“The most significant human rights issues included: killings by security forces, vigilantes and others allegedly connected to the government, and by insurgents; torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees by security forces; often harsh and life threatening prison conditions; warrantless arrests by security forces and cases of apparent government disregard for legal rights and due process; political prisoners; killings of and threats against journalists; official corruption and abuse of power; threats of violence against human rights activists; violence against women; and forced labor,” the report read.<\/p>\n

Responding to this report, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano stressed that the government\u2019s crackdown on illegal drugs promote the welfare and protect the human rights of all Filipinos, adding that this campaign is “guided by the rule of law embodied in our Constitution, which also enshrines the country\u2019s long-standing tradition of upholding human rights.”<\/p>\n

“We do not need others who think they know better than us Filipinos to tell us what to do. As a sovereign nation, the Philippines deserves the same kind of respect we have been extending to our friends in the international community,” Cayetano noted.<\/p>\n

The European (EU) Parliament last week adopted a resolution calling on the Philippines to put an end to extrajudicial killings in its drug war. However, the Palace find this resolution \u201cunfortunate\u201d as the EU Parliament once again interfered with the affairs of the Philippine state.<\/p>\n

Roque earlier reiterated that the Duterte\u2019s administration does not engage in so-called extrajudicial killings, refuting claims that 12,000 have already been killed since Duterte started his anti-illegal drugs campaign upon his assumption of office in 2016.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malaca\u00f1ang on Monday, April 23, said it would prefer to hold on to the previous statements of United States (U.S.) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":130643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[12253,13135,18496,16186],"class_list":["post-161254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-president-rodrigo-duterte","tag-us-president-donald-trump","tag-us-state-department","mauthors-joanna-belle-deala","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161254","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=161254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}