{"id":87819,"date":"2017-02-03T02:13:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T07:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=87819"},"modified":"2017-02-03T02:13:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T07:13:51","slug":"freedom-house-report-far-from-truth-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/03\/freedom-house-report-far-from-truth-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom House report far from truth\u2014Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Freedom<\/a>
Freedom House report far from truth\u2014Palace (Photo by Presidential Communications Group (http:\/\/pcoo.gov.ph\/) [CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>MANILA\u2014Malaca\u00f1ang on Thursday disputed a report of independent watchdog organization Freedom House which said that freedom in the Philippines is on a “downward trend” due to alleged extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during the government\u2019s campaign against drugs.<\/p>\n

“Freedom House has partially attributed the ranking to the President\u2019s policy of alleged extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and addicts and such conclusion is really far from the truth,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently it does not include, in its equation, the widespread satisfaction that common people experienced in the new found peace and security that they find in the neighborhoods,\u201d Abella said as he hinted that Freedom House\u2019s rating of the Philippines may not be an independent finding after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, again, let me just state, the Freedom House, which provides the ranking is also partially funded by the US State Department, which has\u2026 become the subject of the President\u2019s criticisms, okay,\u201d the Presidential Spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, basically, what we are saying is that we understand where they are coming from. They also apparently have their own point of view. But, again, there seems to be a misperception of what the President\u2019s actual operations (are),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In its Freedom in the World 2017 report, Freedom House said the Philippines received a downward trend arrow \u201cdue to the thousands of extrajudicial killings carried out as part of Duterte\u2019s war on drugs, as well as assassinations and threats against civil society activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group rated the Philippines as \u201cpartly free,” the same rating the country got last year.<\/p>\n

The Philippines received an aggregate freedom score of 63, with 0 as least free and 100 as most free.<\/p>\n

In both political rights and civil liberties, it retained its freedoms ratings of 3, with 1 being \u201cmost free\u201d and 7 \u201cleast free.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Philippines was also cited in the group\u2019s Countries to Watch which said: \u201cAfter his extrajudicial war on drugs claimed thousands of lives in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte may continue his extreme policies with strong parliamentary backing.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this, Abella stressed that \u201cthe President\u2019s anti-drug war does not condone extrajudicial killings and the President is clear that he is after criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He likewise pointed out that the campaign against illegal drugs has yielded more than a million drug personalities, some of whom have already surrendered while some submitted themselves to the rehabs programs.<\/p>\n

The Palace official also distanced the government from the acts of rouge cops.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, let me just say, criminal cops are not government. Their illegal acts do not represent the police institution whose duty is to ensure the protection and security of civilians,\u201d Abella said.<\/p>\n

Malaca\u00f1ang likewise branded as \u201cunfounded\u201d Freedom House\u2019s statement that President Duterte won widespread support for his policy of EJK of suspected drug dealers and addicts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President won on an overwhelming mandate of change, okay. So it is for this reason that the Chief Executive continues to enjoy high satisfaction approval and trust ratings from people,\u201d Abella said.<\/p>\n

But despite the somewhat differing view painted by Freedom House, he said that the President will continue to work for the good of the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the face of all this, the President continues to work towards providing Filipinos a comfortable life in spite of widespread corruption even in government and the perception of other entities with different agenda,\u201d Abella said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014Malaca\u00f1ang on Thursday disputed a report of independent watchdog organization Freedom House which said that freedom in the Philippines is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":86165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[14166,11147],"class_list":["post-87819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-ernesto-abella","tag-extrajudicial-killings","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87819","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=87819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}