PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is not going about resolving the country’s drug problem the right way, the White House said Thursday amid signals that the next US president, Donald Trump, would be “more accepting” of his brutal war on drugs.
“President Duterte has certainly raised concerns about the degree to which his government is at least willing to look the other way while these kinds of extrajudicial killings are taking place and while vigilante justice is being meted out,” US Press Secretary John Earnest was quoted by Virginia-based Politico.
Earnest added that the US government should not tolerate the continuing spate of summary executions.
“The position of this administration, the current US government, is simply that extrajudicial killings are entirely inconsistent with the notion of the rule of law and the commitment to upholding basic, universal human rights,” Earnest “Signaling a willingness to backtrack from those values is bad for our individual relations, but it also degrades our ability to exert our influence around the world.”
Earnest’s comments came as Trump suggested he had no problem with Duterte’s aggressive crackdown on drugs and wanted strained ties between the Philippines and the United States fixed.
Mimicking the billionaire’s American accent, Duterte quoted Trump as telling him: “I know you worry about the Americans criticizing you. You’re doing good. Go ahead.”
Duterte said he considers Trump a friend, unlike outgoing US President Barack Obama, who criticized his bloody campaign.
“That’s why I’m very impressed with you, Mr. President [Duterte],” the President added, again quoting Trump. “Oh yes, when you come to Washington, D.C. or New York City, look me up and we’ll have coffee.”
“He understood the way we are handling it and I said that there’s nothing wrong in protecting a country. It was… encouraging in the sense that I supposed that what he really wanted to say was that we would be the last to interfere in the affairs of your own country,” Duterte added.
In an interview with Time Magazine, which named him Person of the Year, Trump asked about parallels between his rhetoric and Duterte’s response to violence.
Trump grabbed a Newsday article about a local street gang with Central America ties, pointed to the story and said, “Well, hey, look, this is bad stuff. They slice them up, they carve their initials in the girl’s forehead, O.K. What are we supposed to do? Be nice about it?”
Despite the criticism from the White House, US ambassador Sung Kim on Thursday reaffirmed a “rock solid alliance” between the United States and the Philippines.
In an interview, Kim said the United States’ “strong commitment” with the Philippines under outgoing President Barrack Obama will continue when Trump assumed office in January.
“I’ve said many times that the United States and Philippines relationship is one of most enjoyed and most special relationships…and there are many different dimensions of this. We have a rock olid alliance, very strong economic engagement [and] law enforcement cooperation, Kim said.
He said regardless of the party in power, the US recognizes the “special relationship” that has been built over 70 years.
Kim is scheduled to visit the President’s hometown, Davao, next week.
Also on Thursday, the Department of the Interior and Local Government said it has formed an independent group to investigate possible human rights violations in the conduct of police anti-drug operations.
DILG Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing said the probe will check on the consistency of the Philippine National Police in upholding human rights as a government policy.
“We want to show them that we are following the process and procedures that secure human rights,” Densing said.
The team, called the ‘Independent human rights probe committee’ is headed by DILG Undersecretary for Peace and Order, Catalino S. Cuy and Densing.
The team will supervise interviews with people and police involved or present during drug-related encounters.
Densing said if indeed human rights violations exist, then the DILG can make recommendations as to how to prevent these from happening again.
“We will explore the perspectives from the victim, suspects who survived, friends or neighbors who witnessed the killings and the police involved in order for us to come up with indicative conclusions on how we can make recommendations as to how we will minimize human rights violations,” he said.
Police officers who violate human rights may face charges and penalties, he said. With PNA
