AN international human rights group on Sunday urged the United States and the European Union to send a strong message to President Rodrigo Duterte that the Philippines “risks an immediate suspension of aid unless the abusive ‘war on drugs’ and its skyrocketing death toll come to a halt.”
Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, also decried Duterte’s comments referencing Nazi party founder Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, calling his words “obscene.”
Kine said the public should not underestimate the impact Duterte’s words have on police and vigilantes.
“Vigilantes lawlessly slaughter their fellow Filipinos without fear of arrest,” said Kine, and they are encouraged by Duterte’s strong words.
Last Saturday, the US State Department said Duterte’s comments regarding Hitler were “troubling.”
His words were “a significant departure” from the tradition of America and the Philippines’ “mutual foundation of shared values…[including] our shared belief in human rights and human dignity,” said State Department Spokesperson Mark Toner.
The United Nations also criticized Duterte, with spokesperson Stephane Dujaric saying, “Any use of the Holocaust and the suffering of the Holocaust in comparison to anything else frankly is inappropriate and is to be rejected.”
Earlier in a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Duterte’s reference to the killing of over six-million Jews during World War II “was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer, a Hitler, a label he rejects.”
“The Philippines recognizes the deep significance of the Jewish experience especially their tragic and painful history,” Abella said.
“We do not wish to diminish the profound loss of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust – that deep midnight of their story as a people,” said Abella.
Last Friday, Duterte told reporters upon his arrival from an official visit to Vietnam that critics portrayed him as a “cousin of Hitler.”
The German government on Friday told the Philippine ambassador that comments by Duterte likening his deadly war on crime to Hitler’s efforts to exterminate Jews were “unacceptable.”
On Saturday, police killed three more drug suspects in Tondo, Manila.
Police identified the slain suspects as Edmund Morales, Jomar Danao Mariano and Ernesto Francisco, who were also allegedly engaged in holdup and robbery. Police said the three suspects were killed in a shootout in Gate 56 at the Parola Compound.
A radio dzBB report said members of the MPD Station 11 were sent to the Parola Compound in Tondo to suppress illegal drug activities, which are allegedly being operated by the Commando Gang.
The Commando Gang’s leader, Jaybee Sebastian, was seriously wounded in a riot inside the New Bilibid Prison’s Building 14, where high-profile inmates are detained.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency lauded a local court for sentencing to life imprisonment a Chinese drug dealer and his Filipino accomplice after they were found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for operating a shabu laboratory in Zamboanga City.
PDEA Director General Isidro S. Lapeña congratulated Regional Trial Court Judge Eric Elumba of Zamboanga City for the conviction of Wan Yi Qui Yang and Benjamin Jamora.
The government on Sunday said it is seizing 1.5 hectares of land in Arayat, Pampanga, where a bit shabu laboratory was recently discovered.
The seizure was ordered by President Duterte after inspected the laboratory and said it could ber converted into a drug rehabilitation center to be run by the local government unit.
Arayat Mayor Emmanuel M. Alejandrino said barangay officials were being questioned about the shabu laboratory. With Romeo Dizon and PNA
