Pubdate: Tue, 16 Aug 2016
Source: Sunstar Cagayan De Oro (Philippines)
Copyright: 2016 Sunstar Cagayan De Oro.
Contact:  http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2983

'IT'S DRUG PUSHERS KILLING EACH OTHER'

CHIEF Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Monday, August 
15, that the Duterte administration is not tolerating the 
extrajudicial killings of suspected drug personalities and stressed 
that it was the drug suspects who are "killing each other."

"As far as we are concerned, the killings are being made by drug 
pushers themselves, killing each other," Panelo told reporters.

Panelo's statement came after the Communist Party of the Philippines 
(CPP) had withdrawn its support on President Rodrigo Duterte's drug 
war, saying it has "clearly become anti-people and anti-democratic."

Panelo said it was "premature" for the communist group to claim that 
the government has the full responsibility on the deaths of suspected 
drug users and pushers.

"It seems that they are already concluding that there is being 
extrajudicial salvaging. That statement would be premature because 
there is, not at this time, any investigation showing that there has 
been extrajudicial killings," Panelo said.

On August 14, the CPP said it would no longer support the President's 
intensified campaign against narcotics as he "has become so full of 
himself and intoxicated with the vast power he is not used to handle 
that he thinks he can get away with upturning the criminal judicial 
system and denouncing people for defending human rights."

Human rights, the communist groups said, are also being violated 
"with impunity" by the authorities.

"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.

The CPP said Duterte's war against drugs "is bound to fail" because 
the government failed to address the "socio-economic roots of the problem."

SUNNEX
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom