Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Sunday defended the memorandum issued by the Office of the President enjoining all departments and other government agencies not to secure loans and grants from the countries that supported the Iceland-led resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Council to look into President Duterte’s administration’s brutal campaign against illegal drugs.
Locsin even disparaged the aid from those countries, saying they never gave us or lent us anything that was worthwhile.
“Experience showed the same countries that voted for the Iceland resolution never gave or lent us anything worthwhile or offered with conditions more onerous than the loans we’d have to pay back. Yes, we take ODA from Japan which gives without precondition, Locsin said in a tweet Sunday.
A total of 18 out of 47 member-states of the UNHCR voted in favor of the Iceland-led resolution.
The 18 are Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uruguay.
Those who cast negative votes were Angola, Bahrain, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Hungary, India, Iraq, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Somalia while Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo, Japan and Nepal,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Togo and Tunisia abstained.
Besides calling for an end to the killings associated with the anti-drug crackdown, the said states also called on the Duterte administration to stop harassing human rights defenders, the Commission on Human Rights and members of the media.
The country’s top diplomat said such a move on the part of Malacanang, though already denied by Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo, was not an ill-advised decision considering that even before the UNHCR resolution there was already a contempt for such loans and grants.
“Not ill-advised. Well before the Iceland vote there was widespread bureaucratic contempt for grants/ loans too much trouble to negotiate, get, and most of which went to foreign consultants of foreign donors or lender countries. Had no respect from old DOF hands, Locsin said.
“That’s also because we don’t want to borrow money from those whose defense of the drug trade and attacks on anti-drug trade campaigns makes us mighty suspicious about where the money’s coming from. Trading drugs is the most lucrative business in the world bar none.
“Yes, we pick and choose. To take indiscriminately is actually criminal. For example, we can never take from narco-states like the most notorious one which voted for the Iceland resolution and had the entire Geneva laughing. Really.”
In the tweets he made on Friday and Saturday, Locsin also called the alleged memorandum a “good move” since the amount of loans involved was “small anyway.”
According to him, the DFA had long asked the European Union to get clearance from the department before donating to the Philippines and other NGOs in the country.
If such an order was indeed issued, it was not the first time that Malacanang rejected assistance from countries it perceived as opposed to its anti-drug crackdown that has killed thousands since Duterte assumed power in 2016.
Last year, Manila rejected P380 million in aid from the EU while in 2017, it also refused to accept more EU grants, pegged at around P13.80 billion or more than 250 million euros after the regional bloc called on the Duterte administration to investigate the alleged human rights abuses in the drug war.