PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday invited the United Nations and the European Union to come to the Philippines and investigate the alleged summary killing of drug suspects in the country.
”I am inviting United Nations [Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon, I am inviting the EU,” Duterte said during the inauguration of Filinvest Development Corp.’s Misamis Power Plant in Misamis Oriental.
“Send the best lawyers of your town and also the rapporteurs to come to the Philippines. I will write them a letter to invite them for an investigation.”
But Duterte said that, “in keeping with the time-honored principle of the right to be heard,” he would also cross-examine the foreign investigators.
”After they have asked me questions, I will also ask each one of them [questions] in an open forum. You can use the Senate or Folk Arts [Theater]. Just watch how I will beat those fools.
”My first question to the rapporteur: I killed thousands? So what was the name of the first victim? What happened, where, for what reason, how was it done? And what time was it?”
Duterte said he would also ask the American rapporteurs and representatives of the EU “about their own sins against the black people” and for bombing Iraq and Syria that killed innocent civilians and children.
”[The] Middle East is a destroyed part of the planet, and that’s why I’m cursing,” Duterte said. PNA Last week, the European Union called on the Philippine government to put an end to the killing of drug suspects and carry out a strict monitoring of human rights abuses.
Duterte said his intensified campaign against illegal drugs that prompted more than 700,000 drug pushers and users to surrender and resulted in the killing of more than 1,000 drug addicts in legitimate police operations had pulled down the crime rate by 60 percent.
”There were many killed but they [were] addicts. What if they [had] killed people?” he said.
On Monday, Senator Leila de Lima filed Senate Resolution 153 urging the Executive department, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, to invite UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard to initiate an independent probe on the alleged summary killings in the Philippines.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III and Senator Panfilo Lacson opposed De Lima’s proposal, saying there was no need for the UN to meddle in the massive drug campaign of the Duterte administration.
De Lima is being investigated at the House of Representatives for her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison.
