Rights group: Philippines a ‘far more dangerous place’ under Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has made the country a “far more dangerous place” in a span of only two years in office, rights group Amnesty International Philippines claimed.

Ahead of Duterte’s third State of the Nation Address on Monday, Joel Noel Olano, AI Philippines section director, stressed that Duterte’s human rights agenda “went on a downward spiral” despite his pledge to be sensitive to the state’s obligation to promote, protect and fulfill human rights and pursue social justice.

He also said that the chief executive “has actively created a climate where anyone can kill or be killed”—with the poor being the obvious prey.

“This situation has given anyone a free reign to commit human rights abuses and violations with impunity where social and political division thrive, leading to greater potential for human rights violations,” Olano said.

Duterte has been widely criticized for his brutal campaign against illegal drugs, which claimed the lives of thousands—mostly urban poor dwellers.

The casualty count is more than 12,000, according to rights watchdogs. But the police have lower figures—some 4,300 “drug personalities” killed in “legitimate anti-drug operations.”

As the killings of suspected drug offenders by police and armed individuals continued, intimidation and harassment of rights defenders both at home and abroad also persisted.

In recent months, priests and local government officials have been killed in gun attacks, prompting groups and individuals to suspect that the pronouncements of the tough-talking leader have something to do with the so-called culture of impunity.

“Abandoning human rights values and principles is a failure on his part and comes with a huge cost of essentially guaranteeing that no one can ever be safe because the country has become a far more dangerous place,” Olano said.

READ: Duterte Year 2: 'Without rights, a return to rule by tyrants'

Palace: There's no truth to AI's statement

Malacañang on Friday disputed the observation of AI Philippines.

“There is no truth to the statement of Amnesty International that President Rodrigo Duterte has made the Philippines ‘a far more dangerous place,’” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

To back up his claim, Roque cited a Social Weather Stations survey that “showed that victims of common crimes are a record-low of 6.1 percent in 2017.”

But the survey actually revealed that 6.6 percent or 1.5 million Filipinos fell victims to common crimes such a pickpocketing or robbery, break-ins, carnapping and physical violence. The figure, however, is lower than the 7.6 percent tallied in December 2017 but 0.5 percentage point higher than the annual average last year.

The result of the same poll led Duterte to say he was useless.

“If this is the case, I’m useless. I’ll ask you to join me. Let’s just resign,” he said last month.

READ: Duterte: SWS survey shows Philippines 'crime-ridden'

The same survey also found that the presence of individuals addicted to drugs had risen in Metro Manila and Mindanao and had fallen in Balance Luzon and the Visayas, the region he regularly denounced as the hotbed of the narcotics problem in the country.

Roque also insisted that the campaign against illegal drugs is conducted through “legitimate police enforcement operations” and that they had been forced to because of violent resistance.

“He, therefore, does not and will never condone extralegal killings, as he maintains zero tolerance for erring policemen who digress from standard protocols and abuse their power,” the president’s mouthpiece said.