Panelo calls Amnesty International ‘stubborn, incorrigible’

Stubborn, incorrigible.

This was how Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo branded Amnesty International for insisting on an investigation by the United Nations of the Duterte administration's drug war killings.

"Amnesty International not only is stubborn but incorrigible as well, when it insists on pursuing and advancing a baseless and false narrative on the government’s war on drugs, specifically on the nature and number of deaths arising therefrom," Panelo said in a statement Wednesday night.

The London-based human rights group earlier said in a report that the drug-related extrajudicial killings in the country remained rampant and needed to be investigated by the United Nations.

Amnesty International tagged Bulacan province, just north of Metropolitan Manila, as the bloodiest area when it comes to the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

Its report compiled in April focused on Bulacan province, examining 27 killings during 20 incidents, 18 of which were official police operations.

Panelo balked at a newspaper report quoting Amnesty International's Philippines section director, which said it was the government, referring to the Philippine National Police, that placed cases of extrajudicial killings at 27,000.

He said this was "one big lie" and part of the "false advocacies" being peddled by the President's critics.  Those neutralized in the drug war "are less than a fifth of this bloated figure," he added.

Panelo challenged Amnesty International to cite the facts and figures of the alleged 27,000 "extra judicial death" and the circumstances of their death.

"Otherwise, their failure will only validate the grotesque falsity of their claim and lace it with condemnable malice," he said.

"Amnesty International can not parrot the bogus information it gets from the anti-Duterte forces and get away with it. It can not recklessly throw accusations without them showing credible proof of their authenticity," he added. —LDF, GMA News