GRAMMY award-winning singer James Taylor said Wednesday he has canceled a February 2017 concert in the Philippines to protest the extrajudicial killings in President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug war.
“I don’t think of my music as being particularly political but sometimes one is called upon to make a political stand,” the US star said in social media posts on Twitter as well as on his Facebook page.
“For a sovereign nation to prosecute and punish, under the law, those responsible for the illegal trade in drugs is, of course, understandable, even commendable,” he said, calling drug dependence a “scourge” and a “worldwide problem.”
“But recent reports from the Philippines of summary executions of suspected offenders without trial or judicial process are deeply concerning and unacceptable to anyone who loves the rule of law.”
Duterte was elected by a landslide earlier this year largely on a vow to kill 100,000 criminals.
Police or suspected vigilantes have killed more than 5,300 people since July, but the government rejects the allegations of summary executions and insists those killed by police had resisted arrest and fought police.
Taylor, 68, rose to fame in the 1970s for writing and performing sensitive songs such as “Fire and Rain” and “You’ve Got a Friend” and has won five Grammy Awards over his long career.
In 2000, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In recent press interviews he has openly discussed his recovery from heroin addiction in his teens, just before he became globally famous.
Taylor informed local promoter Ovation Productions about his decision late Tuesday and rejected last-minute appeals to reconsider, Ovation president and chief executive Renen de Guia said.
De Guia said Taylor was the first foreign performer he is aware of to have canceled a Philippine concert over the killings, and hoped he would be the last.
“As far as we’re concerned we’re pushing through with the others,” he said.
Taylor was scheduled to have played in Manila on February 25 next year as part of a foreign tour. He said his Manila boycott would not affect the Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand legs of his tour.
He apologized to his Filipino fans and said all tickets sold would be fully refunded.
Asked to comment on Taylor’s stand on the drug-related killings, De Guia said: “This is a very sensitive issue and I don’t want to say anything more.”