Cayetano: Rights group linked with opposition responsible for bad perception on drug war

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano has claimed that a human rights group associated with the political opposition is responsible for the negative perception against the administration's war on drugs.

Cayetano did not name the human rights group in an Al Jazeera interview on Friday, but said that it is also associated with "some people in the Catholic church."

"The perception thrown to the international community was led by a certain human rights group associated with our opposition and associated with some people in the Catholic churc," Cayetano said in an interview with Al Jazeera's Mehdie Hasan.

He said the human rights group has been misleading the public with the wrong data and facts about the Duterte administration's war on drugs.

In a statement during the High-Level Debate at the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly last month, Cayetano warned member-states against the "misinformation" about the Philippines' campaign against illegal drugs.

"We should never tolerate human rights abuses but neither should we tolerate misinformation, fake news on and politicization of human rights, for these undermine our collective efforts as the United Nations to uphold the universality of human rights and dignity of human life," Cayetano said.

During the Al Jazeera interview, Cayetano said that a large majority of Filipinos support Duterte's war on drugs and believe that "the drug war is actually working."

The foreign affairs chief cited the latest survey released by American think tank, Pew Research Center.

He added during the interview that the Philippines is investigating all drug-related killings in the country, including the more than 3,800 cases of drug suspects slain in police operation from July 2016 to August this year.

Cayetano reiterated during the interview that the number of killings seemed to have ballooned when Duterte came into power because of the administration's critics' changing of definition of extrajudicial killings (EJKs).

He said that in the past administration of President Benigno Aquino III, a case is labeled an EJK if the victim was a union leader, religious leader, journalists and if the crime is about a political ideology.

"When Duterte came in, they went back to the old definition and anyone murdered or killed was charged against the drug war," Cayetano said.

The Philippine National Police had said that aside from the more than 3,800 killings in police operation, it has recorded more than 3,000 cases of deaths under investigation or killings carried out by unidentified or masked men since Duterte stepped in in July 2016.

Cayetano said Filipinos will not tolerate human rights violations because "we are very spiritual people."

"Whether Muslim or Christian, Filipinos believe in the dignity of life," he added. —ALG, GMA News