Duterte to study whether to allow UN rights council probe in Philippines

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday said he would study whether to allow United Nations investigators to the Philippines to investigate the deaths linked to his war on drugs.

Asked about a draft resolution urging the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the drug war slays and asking the Philippine government to stop extrajudicial killings, Duterte said, "Let them state their purpose and I will review." 

Duterte, nonetheless, shared what he thought of a UN investigation.

"Dagdag lang sila sa intriga," Duterte said.

"They better go to the media and the media will tell them the truth. Eh, ipalabas ninyo ‘yung footages ninyong lahat and all, and that will clear everybody," he told reporters in Malacañang.

Member-states of the UNHRC also on Thursday agreed to set up a preliminary UN  investigation into the thousands of killings in the Philippines' so-called 'war on drugs'.

The resolution, brought by Iceland, was adopted by a vote of 18 countries in favor, 14 against (including China), with 15 abstentions (including Japan) at the 47-member forum in Geneva.

The Philippines delegation urged countries to vote against the text which asks U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to report back on her findings in June 2020.

Malacañang earlier said that an international investigation on drug war deaths would be an interference with the country’s sovereignty.

In March last year, Duterte told soldiers in Zamboanga City that the UN human rights team should be fed to crocodiles if they came to the Philippines to probe the alleged thousands of extrajudicial killings in the course of the campaign.

He also told the police at the time to ignore the human rights investigators.

Duterte is currently facing two communications in connection with the drug war before the International Criminal Court (ICC), which opened in February last year a preliminary examination to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the matter and a full-blown investigation would serve the interests of justice and of the victims.

The President responded by withdrawing the Philippines’ membership in the ICC, a move challenged by opposition senators before the Supreme Court. —NB, GMA News