Awol policeman Bobby Orit and his companion Danilo Guevarra lie dead in front of a store at the Aroma Compound in Vitas, Tondo, following a “shootout” with Manila policemen. Investigators say the two men, the targets of a buy-bust, shot first after they sensed they were dealing with undercover lawmen. /Inquirer photo
UN rights experts ask Duterte anew
United Nations (UN) human rights experts, including special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, have renewed their call for the Philippine government to promptly investigate the killings in the country despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s strong condemnation and threats against the group for criticizing his brutal drive against illegal drugs.
The three rapporteurs — Callamard as special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Michel Forst as special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; and Diego García-Sayán as special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers — issued a joint statement last Thursday from Geneva, Switzerland, seeking probe into the killings in the Philippines.
The most recent attack was Duterte’s threat to slap Callamard if the latter would investigate him for the alleged extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
The rapporteurs, despite receiving threats and insults from Duterte, did not relent and reminded the Duterte administration anew to “carry out prompt, impartial investigations into the high number of killings in the context of the anti-drugs campaign, to bring the perpetrators to justice, and thoroughly review its current policy in this regard, with a view to stopping further attacks taking place.”
This was after the rapporteurs received reports of a “great number of new cases involving killings of men, women and children.”
“Many of the killings appear to be perpetrated by law enforcement officials and by unknown assailants. This seems to indicate a climate of official, institutional impunity, which can only encourage further killings and other excessive use of lethal force by law enforcement personnel or those acting on their behalf or with their acquiescence,” they said.
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