UN experts to Rody: Don’t incite violence

MANILA, Philippines – Independent experts of the United Nations have urged president-elect Rodrigo Duterte to stop instigating violence following his controversial remarks on the assassination of journalists and summary killings of drug pushers.

Cristof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on summary executions, said Duterte’s comments suggesting that journalists are not exempt from assassination are irresponsible and unbecoming of a leader.

“A message of this nature amounts to incitement to violence and killing, in a nation already ranked as the second-deadliest country for journalists,” Heyns said in a statement.

“These comments are irresponsible in the extreme, and unbecoming of any leader, let alone someone who is to assume the position of the leader of a country that calls itself democratic,” he added.

Duterte last week made headlines after saying that journalists are not exempted from
 assassination as there are those who are engaged in corrupt activities.

“You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,” the tough-talking executive was quoted as saying.

David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, said “justifying the killing of journalists on the basis of how they conduct their professional activities can be understood as a permissive signal to potential killers that the murder of journalists is acceptable in certain circumstances and would not be punished.

“This position is even more disturbing when one considers that the Philippines is still struggling to ensure accountability to notorious cases of violence against journalists, such as the Maguindanao massacre,” he said.

Following his controversial statements, Duterte shut down further interviews with media.

Duterte announced Monday he would no longer be holding press conferences or do interviews with media.

Duterte did not allow journalists beyond the main gate of the premises of the regional office of the Department of Public Works and Highways where the Malacañang of the South is located.

Duterte had a meeting there with Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and several other Liberal Party congressmen last night.

Duterte said he is unfazed by the threat of international media groups to boycott his press conferences following his controversial statement on media killings. 

Instead, he turned the tables on media and said he was boycotting them.

Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo, however, said the incoming president acknowledges that some journalists lost their lives because of their advocacies.

“He (Duterte) also condemns all killings, harming of journalists regardless of who these personalities are, whether or not they are for or against any administration,” Panelo told the ABS-CBN News Channel.

Panelo said the UN experts’ statement that Duterte’s comment was an incitement to violence and killings was based on a wrong premise.

“What he was saying at that time was you don’t have to be a journalist to get killed. You can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor, anyone else, you will be killed because you committed a grievous wrong to another individual,” the incoming presidential spokesman said.

“So when a journalist is killed, it doesn’t mean that he was killed because he was advocating a particular cause,” Panelo added.

Incoming Department of Education (DepEd) secretary Leonor Briones also stressed the importance of media to achieve the expected change promised by Duterte.

“There is heightened expectation for change, not only in education but in all aspects of our national life. To achieve these changes, particularly in DepEd the support of media is crucial and indispensable,” Briones said in her statement regarding her acceptance of the post offered by the incoming president.

“In all my years as a social activist, media has supported our campaigns. With their help and consistent coverage, the problem of our foreign debt became a national issue,” she added.

“I look forward to working once more with media on basic education reforms,” she said. “No one person can achieve these difficult goals without everyone’s support, particularly media.”

The two UN independent experts also criticized Duterte for promising to pay bounties to police and military officials for every drug lord they turn in.

“Talk of ‘dead or alive’ has no role to play in any state that claims to uphold human rights in law enforcement,” Heyns said, stressing the limits imposed by international instruments on the conduct of law enforcement forces.

“Intentional lethal use of force may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life and not for common policing objectives,” he said.

“The president-elect fools no one when he says he is not calling on people to be killed.” – Janvic Mateo, Alexis Romero, Edith Regalado