Philippines defends killing of thousands
Print Edition
THE Philippines has defended a surge in killings since Rodrigo Duterte became president over two months ago, handing out a 38-page pamphlet at a regional summit yesterday praising his campaign against illegal drugs in which thousands have died.
“We are not butchers who just kill people for no apparent reason,” reads one page of the booklet, citing the Philippines’ feisty national police chief, Ronald Dela Rosa.
The pamphlet was distributed at a Southeast Asian and East Asian summit in Laos overshadowed by the cancellation of a meeting between Duterte and Barack Obama.
Duterte swept to power in May on promises to wipe out crime and corruption within six months, pledging to wage a war on drug dealers and crush widespread addiction to methamphetamines in the country of 100 million people.
There has been popular support for Duterte’s campaign but the killings have brought expressions of concern from the United States, a close Philippine ally, and the United Nations.
Last week, the number of people killed since July 1 reached 2,400. About 900 died in police operations, officials said, and the rest were “deaths under investigation,” a term activists say is a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings.
Duterte said he regretted that his comments to media “came across as a personal attack” on Obama. His government said in a separate statement the fight against illegal drugs must be won.
“The campaign against illegal drugs has yielded an unprecedented number of ‘surrenderees,’ more than 600,000,” according to the glossy pamphlet, which features various photographs of Duterte, including one of him attending the funeral of a senior police officer allegedly shot by a drug peddler.
The booklet said that since Duterte took office 7,532 drug operations had been carried out, 12,972 pushers and users had been arrested, and police operations in July reduced crime by 49 percent from a year earlier.
“Can you believe it’s only been two months into the Duterte presidency?” the final page reads.
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