MANILA, Philippines — Local and international rights groups denounced the recent pronouncements of President Rodrigo Duterte’s men, accusing them of being in cahoots with drug lords.
Phelim Kine, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia Division called the allegations of presidential spokesperson Harry Roque and Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano the “latest salvo” of the government to dodge international outrage against the brutal war on drugs.
Roque and Cayetano, in separate occasions, said that rights groups have become unwitting tools of drug lords to discredit the administration’s war on drugs but failed to provide evidence to support their claims.
Kine said that the accusations are “dangerous and baseless.”
“Publicly linking human rights groups with ‘drug lords’ constitutes a sinister veiled threat in a country in which government-compiled ‘watch lists’ of suspected drug users and drug dealers have been linked to many of the drug war’s thousands of victims,” Kine said.
Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate also called the presidential mouthpiece’s statement “irresponsible” as it puts the lives of human rights activists at risk.
“It is the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens and not to kill them. This dangerous fake news is the government’s dereliction of its duty to thousands of its constituents who were killed under its fake drug war,” he said.
Roque on Tuesday responded to HRW’s statement, saying it should “not feel alluded to, exaggerate and politicize the issue to get some media mileage and public attention.”
He also maintained his previous pronouncement that the government is not discounting the possibility that drug lords may be using non-governmental organizations.
READ: HRW: Comments from Duterte men put rights defenders at risk
‘Wildest accusations’
Local rights group Karapatan denied the claims of Roque and Cayetano, saying that Malacañang invents the “most ludicrous stories” with its latest attack against human rights defenders.
“They make the wildest accusations—human rights organizations are fronts of either the communist movements, the Liberal Party and drug cartels—without an ounce of fact,” Karapatan Secretary-General Cristina Palabay said.
She noted that the government puts the blame on rights organizations for the administration’s supposed failure to curb the illegal drug problem in the country.
“With these recent accusations, Malacañang is either cooking up a scenario that will justify a massive tokhang-style killing of activists or it is one of those attempts to evade accountability and international human rights instruments,” Palabay said.
She added: “Either way, whatever they’re having in Malacanang will not be enough to numb them and enable their hallucinations in covering up the Duterte regime’s crimes against the people.”
READ: Roque says rights groups likely used by drug lords to impede narcotics crackdown