MALACAñANG on Monday said that drug money is funding efforts to destabilize the Duterte administration after the government has begun winning the war on illegal drugs.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, echoing Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, said some human rights groups were being used by drug lords to criticize President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Roque said attacks on the drug war “have been vicious and non-stop.”
“We therefore do not discount the possibility that some human rights groups have become unwitting tools of drug lords to hinder the strides made by the administration,” he said in a statement.
“Since the drug trade is a multi-billion-peso industry, drug lords can use their money to finance destabilization efforts against the government,” he said.
Roque said the illegal drug trade has lost billions of pesos after the government seized and destroyed drug laboratories and factories and arrested tens of thousands of suspects.
“Illegal drugs is a lucrative business and these drug lords can easily use their drug money to fund [efforts] to destabilize the government,” he said.
Human Rights Watch, which has raised the alarm over the thousands of deaths in Duterte’s war on drugs, described Cayetano and Roque’s statements as “shockingly dangerous and shameful.”
“Are they trying to have death squads target human rights activists? Cayetano and Roque provide no evidence. They should withdraw their comments immediately,” said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch.
Roque also took a shot at opposition Senator Leila de Lima, who has been detained on drug charges.
“With all due respect… Senator Leila de Lima is not fighting for her principles and was not detained because of her political beliefs,” he said.
De Lima has been accused of allowing the illegal drug trade to proliferate inside the National Bilibid Prison when she was Justice secretary.