MANILA, Philippines—Opposition Sen. Leila de Lima took offense at a statement made by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief that recent findings of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the Philippines’ war on drugs were a product of wrong data, saying it was just a diversionary tactic.
De Lima on Thursday (Dec. 17) reacted to PDEA Director General Wilkins Villanueva’s remarks on the recent declaration by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor that there was sufficient basis to believe that crimes against humanity were being committed in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
According to the detained senator, Villanueva’s remarks, which also blamed the opposition for the ICC declaration, was a way to feign government responsibility for alleged extrajudicial killings under Duterte.
“This is one classic example of how Duterte’s minions are the ‘best and the brightest’,” said De Lima.
“Since they cannot justify their crimes, they always blame the opposition and come up with more lies as diversionary tactics,” she said.
“To further mask this regime’s evils and ineptitude, they tout Duterte’s popularity as if to prove that he has done no wrong,” De Lima said in a statement.
“PDEA Chief Wilkins Villanueva should be reminded that majority of Filipinos also fear falling victims to EJKs,” she added.
At the PDEA’s television show on Thursday, Villanueva said that ICC may be referring to another country if it believed that claims of “crimes against humanity” hold ground, because the Philippines’ judicial and prosecution system and other means to heed due process were very much available in the country.
READ: Drug war critics file complaint vs Duterte for ‘crimes against humanity’
Villanueva also questioned where ICC got its data to support the declaration, even raising the possibility that the data may have been obtained from untrustworthy sources.
The PDEA chief did not mention any party in particular.
“What are these crimes against humanity? This would fall in the level of the holocaust, on the level of the genocide in Cambodia,” said Villanueva.
“Now, if we would take a look, is the Philippines on that level? But the justice system is operational, police are there, prosecution is present, they have free speech, and at the same time the President’s approval rating is at 91 percent,” he said, speaking in Filipino.
“Maybe they are looking at another country, because they are seeing a different scenario,” he said.
“They say ‘they have the basis’, but what is this basis and from where does this data come from? Don’t tell me that the data comes (sic) from dubious places, because we have our own data,” Villanueva added.
The PDEA chief, however, pleaded for a stop to painting a “political color” on the war on drugs because saving the country from the drug menace should transcend politics. He said there have been strides made in the campaign against narcotics.
But De Lima, who has been incarcerated on what she said were trumped up drug charges, said she was not pleased by the accomplishments of PDEA that Villanueva was boasting about.
“And what success stories were he referring to? Is that the worsening spate of violence and the increase in killings despite the pandemic?” De Lima said in Filipino.
“Is that having the longest lockdown in the world only to have one of the highest cases in he world because of the failure to implement mass testing? Or is it the government’s lack of a clear vaccination plan until now?” she said.
The ICC declaration was in response to the complaint filed back in 2018 against Duterte by critics of the killings related to Duterte’s war on drugs. The group Rise Up for Life, consisting of human rights defenders and relatives of those killed, got help from National Union of People’s Lawyers.
On Wednesday (Dec. 16), at a pre-recorded address, the President mocked the ICC for supposedly not reading true reports about the human rights situation in the Philippines and being unprepared.
TSB
RELATED STORY:
Drug war critics file complaint vs Duterte for ‘crimes against humanity’