Give cops benefit of the doubt, says PNP on human rights issue
MANILA, Philippines — Police officers must be given “benefit of the doubt” unless witnesses provide strong evidence of human-rights violations in the government’s crackdown on narcotics, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Wednesday.
“As regards proof of [violations] of human rights in anti-drugs [operations], the presumption of regularity of our operating elements performing their duty remains,” PNP spokesman Police Brigadier General Ildebrandi Usana said in a Viber message to INQUIRER.net, when asked about providing evidence to prove human rights violations in the bloody drug war.
“The same human rights dictate upon a person not to accuse another without evidence po. That’s the rule of law. Unless witnesses come out with strong evidence, let us give our police officers the benefit of the doubt and allow them to just do their job that matters the most to our people,” the police official further said.
This after the recent report of International Criminal Court (ICC) showed that the country’s anti-drug war caused “crimes against humanity of murder, torture, and the infliction of serious physical injury and mental harm.”
The report also noted that there is a significant number of minors, aged a few months old to 17 years old, reportedly turned victims of apparent drug-related killings as direct targets, or as a result of mistaken identity or collateral victims.
As of Oct. 1, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said drug war deaths reached 5,942 since the Duterte administration’s drug war began in 2016.
