HRW hits back: Duterte's distraction strategy sidelines demand for accountability

MANILA, Philippines — DFA Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano's accusations against New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) is a manifestation of the Philippine government's distraction strategy, the human rights watchdog said Tuesday.

On Saturday, Cayetano accused HRW of "misleading the international community" after reporting that the human rights situation in the Philippines is at its worst since the time of ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The DFA chief also accused the human rights observer of politicising the drug war issue and has not done any research or investigation on the human rights situation in the country.

READ: Philippines in 'worst human rights crisis' since Marcos

Phelim Kine, deputy director of HRW's Asia Division, said that the "groundless" accusations of Cayetano come as no surprise as he is President Rodrigo Duterte's "chief denier" of the evidence linking the war on drugs to extrajudicial killings.

"They are the latest manifestation of the government’s distraction strategy that appears aimed to sideline domestic and international demands for accountability for what nongovernmental organizations and media outlets estimate is a drug war death toll of more than 12,000 people over the past 18 months," Kine said.

Cayetano's declaration before the United Nations General Assembly that the drug war was a necessary instrument to protect the human rights of Filipinos was "demonstrably false," Kine added.

"It also airbrushed Watch and investigative journalists demonstrating that many of those deaths amount to extrajudicial killings by Philippine National Police personnel and their agents," Kine said.

The HRW deputy director also noted that Cayetano has not called for justice for the thousands of deaths linked to the anti-drug campaign.

"The government has made no genuine efforts to seek accountability for drug war abuses. There have been no successful prosecutions or convictions of police implicated in the killings, despite compelling evidence," Kine added.

Kine stressed that there is a need for a United Nations-led international investigation into the killings to expose the extent of the abuses in the conduct of the anti-drug campaign. The investigation would also determine possible prosecutions for crimes against humanity.

In its World Report 2018 released last week, HRW noted that Duterte's drug war has claimed an estimated 12,000 lives since June 2016.

"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 report read.

The human rights watchdog cited extrajudicial killings, attacks on human rights defenders, children's rights, press freedom, HIV epidemic, sexual orientation and gender identity, terrorism and counterterrorism and relations with international actors as factors in making the assessment.