Palace belittles as ‘fiction’ HRW report on PH’s ‘worst’ rights situation

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque

Malacañang has brushed aside as “fiction” a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, describing the human rights situation in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte as the “worst” since the lifting of Martial Law by former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

In its World Report 2018, HRW said Duterte has sunk the country into its worst human rights situation.

“President Rodrigo Duterte has plunged the Philippines into its worst human rights crisis since the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s and 1980s,” the human rights watchdog said.

According to the HRW report, the Philippines, under Mr. Duterte, has made an “especially brazen and deadly example of a populist challenge to human rights.”

READ: ‘Duterte plunged PH into worst human rights crisis since Marcos’–HRW

But Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque downplayed the HRW report.

“That’s fiction,” he told reporters in a text message.

HRW claimed that the government’s brutal war on drugs has claimed around 12, 000 individuals.

But combined data from the Philippine National Police (PNP), Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and Bureau of Customs (BOC) showed that only 3,967 “drug personalities” have died in the government’s campaign against illegal drugs as of November 27, 2017; while 16, 355 homicide cases related to illegal drugs were still under investigation.          /kga