Philippines ready to face any rights probe – DOJ chief Guevarra

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra. INQUIRER file photo / MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine government is ready to face any inquiry to belie allegations of rampant human rights violations in the country, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Friday.

Guevarra was reacting to reports that Iceland and more than 20 other countries prodded that United Nations (UN) to investigate the thousands of deaths in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.

The draft resolution posted on the council’s website called on the High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to produce a “comprehensive written report” on the human rights situation in the Philippines and present it to the council’s 44th session “to be followed by an enhanced interactive dialogue.”

It also called on the Philippine government to “take all necessary measures to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances” as well as to conduct “impartial investigations and to hold perpetrators accountable in accordance with international norms and standards including due process and the rule of law.”

The draft resolution also asked the government to cooperate with Bachelet’s office and the council’s mechanisms “by facilitating country visits” as well as prevent or refrain “from all acts of intimidation or retaliation.”

READ: Iceland urges UN to report on human rights situation in PH

“With all due respect, our government need not be told by anyone, including the UN or any of its agencies to stop so-called ‘extrajudicial executions’ in our war on drugs because it has never been the policy of the government to tolerate the killing of illegal drug suspects who submit themselves peacefully to our law enforcement authorities,” Guevarra said.

“In any event, our government is prepared to face any inquiry if the same becomes necessary to disabuse the minds of those who rely on or give undue credence to selective, if not biased, second-hand information,” he added./ac