{"id":87815,"date":"2017-02-03T02:04:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T07:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=87815"},"modified":"2017-02-03T02:04:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T07:04:12","slug":"gordon-calls-amnesty-international-report-hearsay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/03\/gordon-calls-amnesty-international-report-hearsay\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon calls Amnesty International report ‘hearsay’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gordon<\/a>
Gordon calls Amnesty International report ‘hearsay’. (Photo: Dick Gordon\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014Sen. Richard \u201cDick\u201d Gordon on Thursday called the report of human rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) “hearsay” and said that he is not willing to conduct a probe into their allegations unless they present solid evidence to back up their allegations.<\/p>\n

AI claimed that members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) kill and pay others to kill alleged drug offenders.<\/p>\n

In its report titled, “If you are poor you are killed”: Extrajudicial Executions in the Philippines’ “War on Drugs”, the organization detailed how the police have targeted the poor and plant evidence, recruit paid killers, steal from the people they kill and fabricate official incident reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been asked whether or not hearings will be conducted on the recent Amnesty International report on the alleged extrajudicial killings,\u201d Gordon said in a statement.<\/p>\n

He made this remark after Sen. Francis \u201cChiz\u201d Escudero said that he will be filing a resolution next week for the Senate to look into what he described as \u201cserious allegations\u201d by the international human rights watchdog.<\/p>\n

Gordon, chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, said he acknowledged that recurring reports of extrajudicial killings in the country were not only \u201cworrisome\u201d but also \u201cdisquieting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He, however, said that the reports he got were \u201cmostly hearsay\u201d from people who have told him that deaths were caused by extrajudicial killings or \u201cTokhang\u201d activities.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026We cannot act on mere hearsay. And the (AI) report, on this score, does not yet rise above hearsay,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026To conduct a hearing based on hearsay is to expend precious government resources on mere \u2018tsismis\u2019 (rumors),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He stressed that if the AI would present \u201csolid evidence to back up an assertion\u201d he would be the first to say that a hearing must be conducted.<\/p>\n

Sen. Panfilo \u201cPing\u201d Lacson, like Gordon, also urged the AI to present evidence and pointed out that the organization had had previous allegations that were not supported by facts.<\/p>\n

He said that their allegations gave the country a bad reputation and it was citizens\u2019 job to demand proof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014Sen. Richard \u201cDick\u201d Gordon on Thursday called the report of human rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) “hearsay” and said that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":81733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[10071,7983,14187],"class_list":["post-87815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-amnesty-international","tag-philippine-national-police","tag-richard-dick-gordon","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87815","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=87815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}