(Eagle News)–The Palace on Friday, Jan. 18, branded as “remarkable in ignorance and bias” the report of a United States-based non-government organization that said the Philippines was a “war zone in disguise.”
“Not having presented any proof that it has conducted factual investigation in the country as to the conditions obtaining, it is reasonable to believe that its conclusions (are) based on allegations made by groups that are hopelessly and blindly critical of the Duterte administration,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project 2018 report.
According to Panelo, “describing the war on drugs as a state terror campaign targeting innocent civilians as a government policy is pure hogwash.”
He said “impunity has no place under the current administration as exemplified by the conviction of Caloocan City policemen involved in the killing of a minor, Kian de los Santos, with no less than the President denouncing the killers and ordering them placed behind bars.”
He noted that Senator Leila de Lima “remains incarcerated because the evidence in the drug-related charges filed against her is strong as determined by the court trying her hence she is unqualified for bail,” while the charges against Rappler were unrelated to the contents that they publish, and were related to their alleged evasion of taxes.
“Make no mistake about it, the Philippines is a dangerous country to drug manufacturers, dealers, addicts, criminals, terrorists, scoundrels, corrupt and abusive persons in authority,” Panelo said, noting that Filipinos “recognize, feel and embrace the visible change happening in our land.”
“To ACLED we say, as we have repeatedly conveyed to other foreign human rights organizations, we do not need lectures from inexpert foreign groups on how to run a nation,” he added.
In its report that analyzed data on political violence and protests around the world, ACLED said the Philippines “is a war zone in disguise..” as “more civilians were killed” there in 2018 “than in Iraq, Somalia or the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
ACLED said this highlighted the “lethality of President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’-cum-state terror campaign.”
“President Duterte’s war on drugs, while past its initial, deadly climax, continues unchecked as the world stands by,” ACLED said.
