Duterte to UN rapporteur: EJK? We don’t do that

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday reiterated his challenge to United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard to engage him in a debate before being allowed to conduct an inquiry into possible human rights violations amid the administration’s bloody war on drugs.

Speaking during the 2016 Presidential Awards for Filipino Individuals and Organizations Overseas at Malacañang, Duterte said he wanted to ask Callamard where she got the “garbage” about summary executions in the country.

“The rapporteur wants to come here and she said she wants to talk to me one on one… I’d like to know where you get that garbage?” Duterte said in his speech.

The President maintained that there was no such thing as state-sponsored killings because the military would not follow such orders.

“Give me a cop in front of me and ask him who was the one I ordered to be killed? Extrajudicial killings? We do not do that. If we do that, they will mount a coup d’état,” he added.

Callamard had asked the government to drop its conditions that she be placed under oath and have a debate with Duterte if she wanted to conduct a probe in the country. She said the conditions were contrary to the code of conduct for special rapporteurs and terms of reference for country visits.

But Duterte maintained that he wanted to “refute” Callamard in public.

International news agency Reuters earlier reported that the Philippine government had canceled Callamard’s visit to the country because she declined to accept the conditions set by the administration, but Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay said she was still welcome to come to the Philippines.

“We have not canceled it. It is up to Callamard to agree and comply with the conditions imposed by President Duterte in inviting her to visit the Philippines,” Yasay said.

The latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that nearly 8 out of 10 Filipinos or 78 percent of 1,500 respondents expressed fear that they or someone they know would be victims of extrajudicial killings amid the government’s antinarcotics campaign./rga