HUMAN rights activists told US lawmakers that they should urge President Rodrigo Duterte to stop extrajudicial killings that have accompanied his war on drugs.
Before a hearing of the US House committee on foreign affairs, iDefend spokesperson Ellecer Carlos and Human Rights Watch deputy director for Asia, Phelim Kine, said the US Congress should make a clear statement against the killings and violence.
“Foreign pressure works and that’s something the United States can bring to bear in spades,” Kine said, adding that he supported a US Senate bill that would restrict firearms sales to the Philippines.
Carlos told lawmakers that the Duterte administration was threatening human rights defenders, and said at least six people from iDefend were listed as persons of interest by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.
Amnesty International senior crisis advisor Matthew Wells, meanwhile, said the US should help the Philippine government reorient its drug policies to “a model based on protection of health and human rights rather than a punitive approach.”
“As one of the oldest and most important allies of the Philippines, the US has a unique position of influence,” he said.
US lawmaker James McGovern (D-MA) said the war on drugs was “not necessary” and said he opposed Duterte’s planned visit to the White House in October.
“President Duterte does not seem to have high regard for human rights. I certainly believe, very strongly, that a man of a human rights records like Duterte should not be invited to the White House,” he said.
The Palace on Friday said the US bi-partisan commission that was holding a hearing on the human rights situation in the Philippines was taken in by the propaganda against President Duterte.
Responding to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s probe on the country’s war on drugs, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo played down allegations of an “economy of murder” amid the lack of accountability for vigilante-style deaths happening as a result of Duterte’s war on drugs.
“The problem is that they’re listening and believing propaganda against the President,” Panelo said in a television interview. “They’re not even here to validate if what they’re hearing and reading about is the truth.”
Panelo challenged interested parties to come to the Philippines and investigate the issue even without an invitation from the Philippine government.
“All of the allegations against the President are unfounded,” Panelo said.