MANILA – Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said a draft resolution calling for a United Nations investigation into the killings in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs is an interference with the country’s sovereignty.
Panelo said an international investigation on the deaths attributed to the administration’s policy initiative would be an interference with the country’s affairs.
“Any move that will interfere with…the management of this country by a sitting president elected overwhelmingly by the people, to our mind is an interference with our sovereignty,” Panelo said.
“The problem with those who initiated it, they are believing in the false news, the false information, the false narratives initiated and spread by those who hate the President’s guts and political will,” he added.
Iceland recently submitted a draft resolution to the UN Human Rights Council to prepare a comprehensive written report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
The resolution urges the Philippine government to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, carry out impartial investigations and hold perpetrators accountable in accordance with international norms and standards including on due process and rule of law.
“To those foreign governments which have been misled by false news and untruthful narratives about the President’s war against illegal narcotics, we reiterate that drug-related deaths arising therefrom are neither state-initiated nor sponsored,” Panelo said.
“These drug-related deaths are consequences of police operations when the subjects violently resist arrest that endanger the lives of the law enforcers who act on self-defense, which is sanctioned by law,” he added.
Panelo said the abusive police officers were not being tolerated by the government and “must face the corresponding punishment of their unlawful actions.”/PN
