Manila: An international rights group blamed President Rodrigo Duterte and his justice secretary for rampant anti-drug killings in the Philippines which has reached almost 2,000 since June this year.
Phelim Kine, Asia’s deputy director of New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), also condemned the killing of Danica Mae Garcia, 5, by a stray bullet on her head — after her grandfather Maximo Garcia, a suspected drug user, was killed in Mayombo village, Dagupan City, Pangasinan on Tuesday.
She was the youngest collateral victim of the government’s strong anti-drug campaign. Hit in the abdomen, the elder Garcia survived while undergoing treatment in a local hospital.
Malacanang, the presidential palace categorised the killer of Garcia as unnamed members of drug syndicates or drug dealers — one of whom was later identified as Bryan Macaayao.
Despite this clarification, Phelim also accused Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre for not responding to calls for impartial investigation of alleged summary executions of drug users or pushers.
Aguirre was severely criticised for having said: “If you’re in the Philippines, you will choose to kill these drug lords.”
In reaction to this, Kine said, “Secretary Aguirre’s perverse endorsement of extrajudicial violence as crime control suggests that Danica Mae is unlikely to be the last child victim.”
“Each day, the death toll from the government’s war on drugs climbs higher and higher,” Kine complained, adding, “These killings suggest Duterte’s aggressive rhetoric advocating violent, extrajudicial solutions to crime in the Philippines has found willing takers.”
Duterte was chastised for having said, “Go ahead and kill them (drug lords and pushers) yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.”
Rights groups are also expected to react to Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa who advised drug addicts who have surrendered to government authorities to “burn the homes” of drug pushers and suppliers.
Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said that fatigue has made dela Rosa make such a comment.
Last week, UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard said Duterte’s promise of reward and protection from persecution to policemen who have killed drug suspects violated international law.
At the time, Duterte threatened to pull the Philippines out of the UN. But Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay belied this plan, adding the Philippines will not leave the UN. Duterte also said his remarks should be taken as a joke.
Sources said that the government’s anti-drug campaign has led to the death of 1,900 people.
