Sen. Leila De Lima. (File photo by LYN RILLON / Philippine Daily Inquier)
Opposition Senator Leila de Lima said Monday that the administration was allegedly not only engaging in faking news but also in faking data.
“We know that this administration does not only fake news, it also fakes data,” De Lima in her message during the National Human Rights Assessment Forum which was read by a representative.
“It hides the traces of its crimes by using Orwellian nonsense, that is to say, it says one thing to mean another, a doublespeak,” she added.
The detained senator noted that the administration was disguising the “real intent” of its campaign against illegal drugs by using the word “tokhang” (to approach and talk) in its anti-drug operations.
“When, in fact, many police operatives just shoot the victims point blank in cold blood, like in the case of Kian de los Santos and many more,” she added.
De Lima also criticized the administration’s denial of the accusations of extra-judicial killings (EJKs) by using “gobbledygook” terms as “deaths under investigation.”
“When, in truth, there were no investigations done,” she said.
“What all these try to achieve is to mislead the fact-checkers, the human rights groups, the media and the general public,” she added.
De Lima, meanwhile, expressed concern towards the state of human rights in the country.
“To say that our country is facing a human rights calamity is not an overstatement,” she said.
She added that with the “killing and abuses” happening coupled with “such level of impunity that this regime has ushered in,” we should not “lose track of the real numbers.”
“The challenge for us is not to lose track of the real numbers, the real perpetrators and masterminds, and the real and wicked agenda behind these atrocities,” De Lima said./ac