President Duterte denies butchery on the increasing number of casualties linked to the on-going drug war.
Butchery is not the word, according to President Rodrigo Duterte, talking about the series of killings and the increasing number of casualties in the disposing of government power over drug personalities all over the Philippines.
Speaking to reporters in Taytay, Rizal, Duterte said there is no need for the international community to investigate the spate of killings in the Philippines because there is no genocide here.
“Genocide is when you go in, just like [in] Africa, you bomb with wanton abandon. You kill people for no reason at all. You massacre women. In the Middle East, you burn women for refusing to have sex.
‘Yan ang dapat patayin. Hindi na sila kailangan mag-permiso sa akin, ‘yung [UN offices on] Human Rights (It’s these people who should be killed. If we had such cases, they would not need permission from me to investigate),” he said.
“In the Philippines, walang namatay dito, there is no wanton killing of civilians. Either lumaban sa pulis, and we are ready, I said to prepare, to answer for it, or ‘yung pinatay na sinalvage,” Duterte added.
(In the Philippines, there is no such deaths here, there is no wanton killing of civilians. It’s either they fought off the police, and we are ready, I said, to prepare, to answer for it, or those salvaged.)
The chief executive officer said that killings could not be all blamed on him, especially the victims of summary executions.
He reiterated that he only takes responsibility on the killing of drug addicts in the course of legitimate police operations.
The president has already directed the PNP to send him the spot reports and he has been studying it every night to defend the authorities.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Tuesday issued a stern warning to the government during a joint Senate probe into extra-judicial killings in the anti-drug campaign.
CHR Chair Chito Gascon said government should show its resolve to prevent killings or risk the consequences of a Universal Periodic Review scheduled in April 2017 and having the International Criminal Court (ICC) step in to exercise jurisdiction over cases of crimes against humanity in the country.
Firing back, Duterte slammed Sen. Leila De Lima, the United Nations rapporteur and human right groups who keep on blaming him for all the killins all over the country. He called him “stupid” which came with uttering of bad words.