President Rodrigo Duterte has publicly said an unspecified number of Chinese nationals were involved in the illegal drug trade in the Philippines and that drugs have been smuggled from China to the Philippines.
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Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown has been the deadliest and most massive in recent Philippine history, with almost 2,000 suspects dead so far and more than 673,000 others surrendering for fears they may be killed, according to police.
There has been speculation in the local media that some of the killings were carried out by corrupt police officers who were wiping out drug peddlers to avoid exposure. Most of the suspects reportedly died because they resisted arrest, Dela Rosa said.
Jennilyn Olayres, who lost her husband to Duterte’s drug war, appealed to the president to “kill drugs, not people”. Already, around 675,000 voluntary surrenders have been logged by municipalities across the country.
He said that the statistics would be legitimate. “We will continue but it’s not (indiscriminate)”.
“I hope China is dealing with us in good faith”.
“The Duterte administration’s war on drugs, a very urgent and critical domestic matter, is being waged with firm adherence to our established human rights principles”, Yasay said.
“We admit we make mistakes, we are not ideal”. And we will not give it to them easily.
President Duterte even threatened to pull out of the United Nations saying, “I do not want to insult you. They’re happy with what the police are doing”.
Tuesday’s sessions were the conclusion of a two-day hearing.
Crime rates in Davao decreased while he was in office, though human rights groups estimate than more than 1,000 people were killed with no legal process.
Dela Rosa said that there was no declared policy to kill drug users and pushers.
Filipino Catholic and Protestant bishops are seeing a rise in drug-related killings and are asking the government’s anti-narcotic campaign to step in.
The president has been referred to as “The punisher” or “Duterte harry” for his steamroll approach for his anti-drugs campaign which has led to 600,000 suspects turning themselves in. Leila De Lima, one of Duterte’s most outspoken critics, convened this week’s hearings.
The crackdown and some strongly worded criticism Duterte has made of the United States since coming to power present a dilemma for Washington, which has been seeking to forge unity among allies in Asia in the face of an increasingly assertive China, especially in the strategic South China Sea.
She calls the crackdown a “very important issue of public interest”, saying that even the global community has taken notice of “this phenomenon of summary executions”.
“The disclosure by Philippines’ police chief Ronald dela Rosa (of the number of killings) is a terrifying indication that the authorities are grossly failing in their obligations to respect and protect the right to life”, AI said in a statement.
Some of the deaths could have been prevented, he said. “If you are that rude, we might just as well leave the organization”, Duterte told a news conference in Davao City on Sunday. CNN could not independently verify the figures the government provided.
The police does not and will not condone vigilante killings, he said asserting that these have been perpetrated by crime syndicates.
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The two sides should also “initiate capacity-building initiatives … against the transnational trafficking of drugs”.
