Human Rights Watch condemns killing of 5-year-old drug war victim

YOUNG VICTIM A relative grieves beside the coffin of Danica May (inset), 5, who was felled by an assassin’s bullet intended for her grandfather on Tuesday. WILLIE LOMIBAO/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

The killing of five-year-old Danica May Garcia, the youngest fatality and collateral damage in the government’s drug war, has drawn condemnation from the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

On Friday, the human rights group’s deputy director for Asia, Phelim Kine, denounced Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre for defending the drug-related killings and refusing to respond to repeated calls for an impartial investigation on the summary executions of suspected drug users or pushers.

He further took issue with Aguirre’s blithe dismissal of criticisms against the government’s stance on the killings, insisting that, “If you’re in the Philippines, you will choose to kill these drug lords.”

“Aguirre’s perverse endorsement of extrajudicial violence as crime control suggests that Danica May is unlikely to be the last child victim. Each day, the death toll from the government’s ‘war on drugs’ climbs higher and higher,” Kine said in a statement.

Garcia died from a gunshot wound to the head after an unidentified gunman opened fire on her grandfather, Maximo Garcia, as the family sat down to lunch, HRW said, citing media reports.

The attack came just three days after the older Garcia had registered with local police, who suspected his involvement in the drug trade, the group said. He survived a gunshot shot in the abdomen in the attack, which police have attributed to unnamed “drug dealers.”

“Danica May is just one of more than a thousand Filipinos killed by unidentified gunmen between July 1, when President Roderigo Duterte took office, and Aug. 19,” HRW said.

It cited official statistics indicating that police had killed 712 suspected “drug pushers and users” in that time period, besides accidental deaths including Danica May’s.

“These killings suggest Duterte’s aggressive rhetoric advocating violent, extrajudicial solutions to crime in the Philippines has found willing takers,” Kine said.

“Last month, he exhorted Filipinos who knew of any drug addicts to ‘go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful’,” he said of the President.

Established in 1978, HRW is an international nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights.