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UN rights body won’t be fooled, De Lima tells Cayetano


Senator Alan Peter Cayetano and the rest of the Philippine delegation to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva should stop “fooling itself” that they can hide the administration’s record of killings and human rights abuses, Senator Leila de Lima said Monday.

In a handwritten note, De Lima scored the supposed “misplaced bravado” of the delegation tasked to present the human rights record of the Philippines to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

“This early, said delegation is fooling itself that the international delegates to the periodic review are as stupid as the rest of the Malacañang cheering squad in their belief that they can pull off a magic trick and hide the Duterte regime’s record of EJKs and human rights abuses from the rest of the world,” De Lima said.

A staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, De Lima had earlier initiated a Senate investigation on the alleged extrajudicial killings amid the government’s crackdown on illegal drugs.

“Cayetano’s audience this time is not a cyberspace inhabited by paid trolls and a bureaucracy made up of Duterte sycophants, but independent-minded envoys who are perfectly aware of the human rights situation in the Philippines,” De Lima said.

“Cayetano this time cannot simply pull a fast one on these country delegates with a sanitized version of our country’s HR situation. Good luck to him anyway, and hope he will not be eaten alive in Geneva,” she added.

De Lima is presently detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame over her alleged involvement in the proliferation of illegal drugs inside the national penitentiary when she was still secretary of Justice.

Last week, Cayetano presented the human rights record in the Philippines, and defended the government’s war on drugs.

Cayetano blamed “fake news and alternative facts” from local media, saying Duterte was portrayed to have been “acting with impunity.”

He said the tally of killings in the country were “well within the average” of the past six years of the Aquino administration, citing statistics of 11,000 to 14,000 yearly.

Data presented by Cayetano said that as of April 20, deaths resulting from presumed legitimate law enforcement operations were at 2,692, while total homicide cases were 9,342.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Isidro Lapeña, for his part, cited the “principle of non-intervention,” saying the government should be allowed to determine the “best approach” against its drug problem.

“While the drug problem is a common and shared responsibility, we underscore the sovereign right of each state to determine the best approach to address their drug problem considering its historical, political, economic, social and cultural context, and social norms,” Lapeña said.

“Full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the states as well as the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of states must be observed by all,” he added. —KG, GMA News

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