THE Catholic Church supports the investigation of top government officials linked to the illegal drug trade by arrested drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.
Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippine President Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a letter entitled “Our Country and Our Faith,” that the Church is disturbed that high-ranking officials could have been involved, and that the investigation must spare no one.
In the same statement, however, the CBCP president also criticized the government’s bloody war on drugs that has resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 suspected drug pushers and users since President Rodrigo Duterte took office.
“The daily reports of suspects and detainees shot by law enforcers supposedly because they fought back or grabbed a police escort’s gun are very disturbing and truly distressing,” Villegas said.
“There is no way that a government can credibly claim that it is waging a relentless war on drugs to preserve life, while in the process abetting, encouraging or fomenting the destruction of life…,” he said.
“The observations of international watchers and monitoring groups should not be cavalierly dismissed as statements of those who do not know the reality ‘on the ground.’ These are specialized agencies of an international stature, and when they warn that human rights are egregiously violated, their warnings ought to be heeded by any conscientious government,” he added.
The Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop said the campaign against drugs and upholding of human rights can go hand in hand and should not oppose the other.
“There can be no opposition between the campaign against drugs and the campaign for human rights. In fact, any opposition renders one or the other meaningless and fruitless. We seek the elimination of the drug trade and an end to the proliferation of habituating substances because they constitute a real threat to well-being. But we cannot be consistent in this resolve by denying some the right to their own well-being, fundamental to which is the right to life,” the archbishop said in his letter.
On Wednesday, the Philippine National Police Internal Affairs Services said it would deepen its investigation of policemen implicated by Espinosa.
PNP-IAS deputy inspector general Chief Supt. Angelo Leuterio said all policemen named by Espinosa would be immediately placed under the PNP-Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit.
Leuterio said they will summon to Camp Crame all the policemen mentioned by Espinosa in the Senate hearing Wednesday. With PNA
