Palace hits UN expert for asking gov’t to stop attacks vs rights defenders

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo. INQUIRER file photo

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang slammed as “reckless” and “irresponsible” the call of a United Nations (UN) special rapporteur for the Philippines to stop attacks against human rights defenders in the country.

UN special rapporteur Michel Forst, in his latest World Report on the situation of human right defenders, has called “on the government to end immediately all forms of violations against human rights defenders, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.”

Forst said some states, including the Philippines, “have taken steps to frustrate the enjoyment” of rights.

“The government’s War on Drugs has created a climate of insecurity and impunity for extrajudicial killings that affect human rights defenders,” the report read.

READ: UN expert asks Duterte admin: Stop maligning human rights advocates

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the remark of Forst “demeans” the integrity of the entire UN.

“The recent call of United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) Michel Forst not only is reckless but irresponsible as well for it not only demeans the integrity of the UNSR system but the entire UN mechanism itself,” Panelo said in a statement.

“We are fed up with this practice of using the UN as a platform to parrot baseless criticisms of local interest groups who are supported by resentful politicians belonging to the opposition,” he added.

“For too long,” according to Panelo, the UN has “been used by these detractors as a tool for vilification.”

He said special rapporteurs “should be less gullible as this reinforces the President’s contempt for them who have consistently manifested bias against the Philippines.”

The Palace official said the fact that the Philippines is a UN member-state and a member of the UN Human Rights Council, after being elected by 165 States to a fifth term, “bolsters our position that respect for human rights and its advocates is being upheld by this administration.”

“If Mr. Forst only checked his facts first, he would have known that organizations presenting themselves as so-called human rights defenders never had it so good under the Duterte administration,” he said.

“They continue to fully exercise all their rights to air issues and concerns related to their advocacies in an environment that is free and secure from any threat or harassment,” he added.

Panelo, who is also President Rodrigo Duterte’s chief legal counsel, challenged “local groups that have been feeding Mr. Forst with false information to submit their alleged cases of violations against their members to proper authorities such as the Inter-Agency Committee under Administrative Order 35 (s.2012), which is charged with handling cases of extrajudicial killings, torture, enforced disappearances and other grave violations of the right to life and liberty.”

“Unless they can properly do so, we stand by our firm admonition of these groups to refrain from making a fool of these UNSRs, a mockery of the UN, as well as using their allegations as leverage to secure financial resources from over-trusting funding institutions,” he said.

Since he assumed office in June 2016, Duterte’s brutal war on drugs and fight against criminality has received global criticisms. Mr. Duterte, however, still vowed his campaign against illegal drugs and criminality would be “unrelenting.” /kga