Locsin calls UN rights body a ‘kangaroo court’

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Friday called the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) a “kangaroo court” after it adopted a resolution urging the Duterte administration to prevent extrajudicial killings and to allow visits to the country by representatives of UN rights bodies, adding that those who supported it were on the payroll of drug syndicates.

Voting 18-14 with 15 abstentions, the council in a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday called on the government to punish those responsible for extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, and also requested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a “comprehensive” report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.

The administration and the opposition on Friday clashed over whether the country should abide by the UN body’s resolution, sharpening the divisions among the nation’s leaders over the human rights situation, especially the rising death toll in President Duterte’s brutal war on drugs.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Locsin said the resolution would have no effect, “but for those who voted to insult us, the consequences will be far-reaching.”

Commenting on the resolution, the Movement for Law and Justice tweeted on Friday that lawyers ought to just fight for their causes instead of antagonizing the judge or prosecutor and to always participate in proceedings and be prepared to present their cases.

In response, Locsin said: “And that is what we did and we did it in a kangaroo court and we are vindicated. Only those deepest in the pockets of the drug trade clung to the resolution.”

Locsin has maintained that counting the votes against the resolution plus the abstentions showed that only a “tiny minority” favored it.

Sotto: Go to Syria

Chiming in, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said, also on Twitter, that “dangerous drugs tolerant” countries supported the resolution.

“They are obviously biased. If they are so concerned about human rights, then they should go to Syria,” he said in a separate tweet.

In its first-ever resolution on the Philippines, the UNHRC expressed concern over allegations of killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, and attacks against activists, human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and the political opposition.

Duterte and the police have denied authorizing extrajudicial killings. However, he has repeatedly threatened drug offenders with death, encouraging law enforcers to shoot suspects who fight back.

Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, a former national police chief who first enforced the drug crackdown, said he was not afraid of investigations.

“Come here and cut my head off if these alleged extrajudicial killings were state-sponsored,” Dela Rosa said. “Ask the people, if I am the face of war, why did they make me win as a senator?”

In a statement on Friday, presidential legal adviser and spokesperson Salvador Panelo condemned the resolution authored by Iceland, saying it was based on “false information and unverified facts and figures.”

“The resolution is grotesquely one-sided, outrageously narrow, and maliciously partisan. It reeks of nauseating politics completely devoid of respect for the sovereignty of our country, even as it is bereft of the gruesome realities of the drug menace in the country,” he said.

‘Misled by Iceland’

Panelo said those who supported the resolution were “misled by Iceland, which in turn was led astray by the continuing and relentless false news, published by a few biased media in the country and elsewhere.”

He was referring to reports by human rights advocates that up to 27,000 people have been killed in the drug war. The official police figure is around 6,600.

Opposition lawmakers hailed the resolution and urged the government to cooperate with the human rights body.

ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro said that if the Duterte administration had the “audacity to kill” without due process, “then they should be brave enough to face investigations on its policies.”

Sen. Risa Hontiveros said the government should respect and support the resolution, adding that as a member of the international community “our country has an obligation to subject its public policies and even our leaders to international scrutiny, in the same way that we may hold accountable the actions of other nation-states.”

International scrutiny

Detained Sen. Leila de Lima, a fierce critic of President Duterte and his drug war, said the resolution was a “bold move” to “jump-start” the quest for accountability.

“The door of domestic investigation may have been shut, but the windows of international scrutiny are beginning to open up toward justice for the Filipino people,” she said.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said the administration should not ignore the resolution because “the government is legally and constitutionally mandated to honor our treaty obligations.”

“In today’s world, human rights knows no boundaries,” he said.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan reminded the nation that “long after the Duterte administration is gone we will all be judged as to where we stood as mass murder of our hapless poor was taking place in our country.”

Human rights lawyer Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno on Friday said the Philippines “would really be isolated” if it continued to oppose the UNHRC resolution.

Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said the Philippines should get out of UNHRC if it refused to abide by its resolution.

“If you cannot participate in the process, resign. Stop the hypocrisy,” Palabay said in a news conference. —WITH REPORTS FROM KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING, DJ YAP, PATRICIA DENISE M. CHIU, MELVIN GASCON, AP AND REUTERS