President Rodrigo Duterte (Paulo C. Rizal/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY — While it orders the New People’s Army to continue its operations against drug trade operators and protectors, the Communist Party of the Philippines said it will no longer support the anti-drug war of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, which they say is “bound to fail” following the increasing number of extra-judicial killings of suspected drug personalities.
In a statement on Friday, August 12 the CPP said their anti-drugs operation “will no longer be considered as cooperative with the Duterte regime’s undemocratic and anti-people “war on drugs.”
The CPP said the government’s anti-drug campaign has resulted in extra-judicial and vigilante-style killings.
“Human rights are being violated with impunity by police personnel, emboldened by Duterte’s assurances of “I got your back” and his public declarations of contempt against human rights,” the CPP said.
It said that nearly 1,000 people have been killed in just a little more than one month.
It claimed that police authorities have carried out the summary killings of suspected drug users and pushers who “resisted arrest” or even while under custody and detention.
It said that the present anti-drug campaign “does not address the socio-economic roots of the problem.”
“It has been proven in history that no amount of killing will succeed in putting an end to the drug menace. After ten years of the “anti-drug war” in Mexico, and with almost 80,000 people killed, the intensity of the drug problem remains the same if not worse,” the CPP said.
The CPP also called on the public to unite in demanding justice and ending the police and vigilante killings.
“At the same time, the people should amplify their urgent clamor for jobs and land to improve their economic condition, make them productive and draw them away from social misery and desperation, in order to, thus, end the conditions for the proliferation of drugs,” it said.
Bias in treating suspects
The CPP said the government has targeted mostly poor people who are allegedly linked to criminal syndicates while “the suspected big drug lords and their protectors are afforded courtesy calls to Malacañang, accommodations in Camp Crame’s guest house and preliminary investigations by the NBI.”
“The worst that they have been made to undergo is to suffer the lectures of the (Philippine National Police) chief,” it said.
On August 7, Duterte named 158 names of government officials, including judges, mayors, congressmen, military and police allegedly linked to illegal drugs trade.
On August 8, PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa lashed out at the police officials who showed up in Camp Crame after being named by the President.
“In all likelihood, many of the summary and vigilante killings are being carried out by the criminal syndicates who use the “anti-drug war” as camouflage for waging all-out war against their rivals and their rival protectors in the police, bureaucracy and judiciary or to rub-out their own men,” the CPP said.
It said that “it would be no surprise” that the list read by Duterte came from rival criminal syndicates.
Palace: Duterte’s campaign gets positive result
Meanwhile, Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar announced that crime incidents in the Philippines are showing a decline with 31 percent decrease of index crime on July this year.
Citing PNP data, Andanar said that a month after Duterte was sworn into office, the incident of crime dropped to 50,817 this July from 56,339 of the same month last year.
He said the index crime volume dropped from 17,105 incidents in July 2015 to 11,800 in July this year. Index crimes, as defined by the PNP, involve crimes against persons such as murder, homicide, physical injury, and rape; and crimes against property such as robbery, theft, and carnapping.
Andanar also said that in July 2016, crimes against property went down to 4,476 incidents, or 40.3 percent, and crimes against persons declined by 13.82 percent, or 829 incidents, as compared to the same period last year.
More violent
But the CPP warned that the war against drugs of the Duterte administration will be more violent.
“Duterte’s war is set to unleash more violence and counter-violence, political maneuverings as well as media contests between rival criminal syndicates as represented by their politicians and police protectors,” it said.
The CPP also said Duterte’s list has no proof “nor clear basis for accusations of their involvement in drugs.”
The CPP also said that the President has become “so full of himself and intoxicated with the vast power he is not used to handle.”
“He thinks he can get away with upturning the criminal judicial system and denouncing people for defending human rights. He dishes out threats of imposing martial law,” it said. (davaotoday.com)
