(Eagle News)–The Palace on Saturday, Aug. 3, slammed the New York Times for its editorial the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has become the deadliest place for environmental and rights activists.
In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the Aug. 1 editorial titled “In the Fight to Save the Planet, Its Defenders Are Being Killed” that said the country of the “brutal” Duterte took the spot from Brazil was “not surprising.”
He said the NYT “has been dishing out false information and narratives on the Philippine situation under the leadership of PRRD, and “has not exerted the research required of responsive journalism.”
He said it did not “conduct an in-depth independent study on such a delicate subject-matter.”
Instead, he said it relied heavily on the annual report of human rights group Global Witness, which “missed the point” when it said the Philippines was a deadly country for land rights activists.
Panelo said the Global Witness “made it appear that it is the government which is to blame for the situation while failing or omitting to factor the local communist movement and armed conflicts as critical components thereof.”
It said it has “not considered the fact that many of our local authorities, security forces, and even tribal leaders died protecting land rights against communist insurgents who want to control these areas.”
“Necessarily, the President had to undertake measures to maintain peace and order in the affected localities,” he said.
He said Duterte is not “brutal,” as claimed by the NYT, which “has the reckless habit of relying mainly on false facts regarding this administration’s campaign against illegal drugs and the causes of murders occurring in the land areas of the country, peddled by the communist rebels and their supporting left-leaning organizations, as well as the political opposition.
Panelo said Duterte does not allow any law enforcer to use savage methods in enforcing the law.
In fact, he said “anyone who goes against police protocols in effecting arrest and complying with court orders are prosecuted administratively and criminally.”
“The President is very strict in enforcing the law. No friendship, alliances or blood relationship temper nor impede this enforcement. No one is spared from the harsh application of the law,” he said.
He said “the governance of the President is based on his constitutional duty to serve and protect the Filipino people.”
“No force on earth nor the baseless condemnation from the outside world will chain or halt this President from performing the constitutional command of protecting the nation and preserving the Republic,” he said.
“He will continue to do it with passion, dedication, integrity, courage and zeal against the enemies of the state, as well as the purveyors of falsities, and those who dare assault the country’s sovereignty, regardless of the risk and cost to his life, liberty, honor and to his presidency,” Panelo added.
