Malacañang on Tuesday spurned the “reckless” proposal of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) to create an independent commission to investigate the alleged involvement of police officers in the killing of people allegedly involved in illegal drugs.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo stressed that the international human rights watchdog’s recommendation intrudes the Philippines’ domestic affairs.
“This proposal by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) for the creation of an independent commission to go after police officers allegedly involved in the killing of drug suspects smacks of another effort of this moribund group, which projects itself as a human rights organization, to intrude into our domestic affairs,” Panelo said in a statement.
HRW issued the proposal after Chief Superintendent Debold Sinas, chief of the Philippine National Police for the Central Visayas region, was quoted in a Cebu Daily News report as saying that some of the hitmen hired by drug lords were retired military or police officers.
READ: Rights group wants probe on ‘hitmen-cops’
Panelo said HRW’s “inference from an interview of a lone police official cannot be a valid ground for such reckless proposal.”
“This is not new and is no different from those hurled by desperate critiques of this administration since Day 1 of the President’s war against illegal drugs,” he said.
“This group’s latest effort to use media to resurrect an old issue clearly aims to undermine the integrity of the government’s institutional mechanisms,” he added.
Panelo insisted that the country has existing and functioning mechanisms to ensure that human rights are protected, citing the Internal Affairs Service (IAS) of the PNP, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and Congress.
Panelo stressed that government does not need “schooling from outsiders on how to run the country.” /muf