HRW takes Yasay to task over assertions on the war on drugs 

Human Rights Watch Director Ken Roth took Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay to task early Tuesday, characterizing Yasay's assertion that Philippine police officers strictly followed the rules of engagement during anti-illegal drugs operations as nonsense.

"Let me just say it's poppycock to claim that the rules of engagement are being followed, just as it's false to claim that the repeated day after day violations of the basic rules are being investigated," Roth told journalist Christiane Amanpour during her CNN International program "Amanpour".

Earlier in the program, Yasay explained that of the 7,000 deaths attributed to the government's anti-illegal drugs campaign, 2,000 of the deaths were a result of legitimate police operations, during which the "rules of engagement were strictly followed."

The rest of the killings were "simple murders."

However, Roth countered that those killed in the war on drugs were "basically picked up, never saw a court, never saw a judge, never had any presumption of anything. They were just executed."

"Roughly a thousand executions a month," he added. "I mean the only thing that resembles a war is the death toll."

The HRW director also said that the executions had been actively encouraged by President Rodrigo Duterte "sometimes overtly, sometimes in thinly veiled rhetoric."

"The Philippine president is basically ripping up the most basic requirements of human rights," continued Roth.

HRW will release a report on the Philippine government's war on drugs on Thursday.

Populism

Yasay, meanwhile, had told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, that human rights could not be used as a shield or excuse to destroy the country.

"In essence he's using enemy-of-the-state rhetoric," countered Roth. "He's saying, people who we think, based on who knows what evidence, are dealing in drugs, are enemies of the people and therefore we can execute them."

"If you think that through, nobody believes that!"

As to the Philippine government's assertion that its methods were popular, he argued that this was why basic human rights were not decided on in popularity contests.

"Everybody has a right to a fair trial, everybody has a right not to be summarily executed, regardless of what the majority thinks," asserted Roth. "That's the worst kind of populism, that the majority likes these executions, they're alright. Clearly they're not."

"It may be popular because the victims tend to be poor, often from the slums, often from the shantytowns, the forgotten people of society. And it may well be that the majority of Filipinos are just as happy to get rid of these people," he continued. "But that's no way to order a society."

"Everybody has rights, even a poor person." — DVM, GMA News