‘Impunity will be the legacy of Duterte,’ says rights advocates

MANILA, Philippines — “Impunity will be the legacy of President (Rodrigo) Duterte.”

Thus, was the declaration of human rights advocates who hacked the government’s online portal Wednesday as a form of protest against the purported “worsening human rights situation in the Philippines.”

Cyber PH for Human Rights said they would hold their cyberattack on PH.gov for a full 24 hours or until 4:00 p.m. of March 11.

“We intend to continue the cyberattack until 4 p.m., 11 March 2020, a full twenty-four hours of protest against the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines,” Cyber PH for Human Rights said in a statement Thursday.

“Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque has made remarks today that impunity has no place in the Duterte administration, but for as long as the President Rodrigo’s top henchmen […] continue their bloody full-court press against unarmed civilians in the guise of search warrant implementation, impunity will be the legacy of President Duterte,” it also said.

Earlier, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) confirmed a cyberattack has crippled the national government’s main website.

According to Cyber PH for Human Rights, the takedown was initiated through a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack – the same attack that affected Amazon Web Services in 2019.  However, they noted that the Amazon site was just down for eight hours. A check by INQUIRER.net showed that PH.gov was still out as of 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

“This new form of protest is now upon us. Mr. Duterte and his government should watch out for more,” the group warned.

Cyber PH for Human Rights has previously denounced the killing of nine activists during alleged simultaneous police operations in the Calabarzon region on March 7, which has since been dubbed as “Bloody Sunday.”

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has maintained that the operation was legitimate and that the activists killed tried to resist arrest by fighting it out. Earlier Thursday, PNP said at least 37 firearms and other explosives were seized from the scene after the serving of the search warrants.

Bloody Sunday has also earned the government and its forces widespread rebuke that even international organizations like the United Nations and European Union expressed their concerns over the attacks.

KGA