(Eagle News)–The Palace on Monday, March 4, blamed the critics of the administration for the results of a recent Social Weather Stations survey that showed a majority of Filipinos were worried they would become victims of extrajudicial killings.
“We understand this concern of our people given the grossly inflated number of drug-related killings falsely peddled and grotesquely sensationalized by the incorrigible critics of the government’s campaign against prohibited drugs,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.
According to Panelo, “for the umpteenth time, we do not tolerate EJKs nor knowingly allow them to happen.”
“EJKs and vigilante killings are not state-sanctioned nor state-sponsored,” he said, noting that “impunity has no place in the Duterte administration nor can it find sanctuary elsewhere.”
He said the government was probing “all complaints and allegations of extrajudicial deaths to ensure that perpetrators will not escape accountability.”
“The vilification campaign against the drug war and the demonization of the President by the cantankerous and vociferous political opposition as well as the most vocal detractors are ignored by the citizenry as they express their confidence in the administration’s capability in finding a solution to the EJKs,” Panelo said, noting the results of the same survey that showed that 71 percent of Filipinos believe the administration was serious in solving the EJK problem.
