Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said in his Al Jazeera interview on October 6 that the more than 3,000 people killed during police operations were all drug dealers.
UpFront host Mehdi Hasan asked Cayetano questions the over 3,000 deaths in the Duterte administration’s drug war and told him the victims were drug dealers.
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“How do we know that? You didn’t try them. You didn’t prosecute them. You didn’t charge them. You shot them on sight. That’s not a democratic way of solving crime, is it?” Hasan asked.
“You’re absolutely saying it as if you’re not on the ground. Come and look. So, if I pull a gun on you here, right now, and you shoot me, it’s your fault? Or it’s my fault?” Cayetano said.
That’s not what I asked. I said three and a half thousand people have been killed… Are they all criminal drug dealers?” Hasan countered.
To this, Cayetano answered, “Yes.”
But netizen Bernard Ong objected to Cayetano’s response to the UpFront host.
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He questioned why Cayetano would identify the South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo and the other minors as “drug dealers” after they were killed during police operations.
“He was taken from his home by police in a Tokhang operation. Raiders ransacked the house and accused Jee Ick Joo of drug involvement. They stole P540,000 in jewelry & other items. They demanded P8m from his wife as ransom. She paid P5m but never saw her husband again. Jee was brought to Crame where he was killed by strangulation. His remains were cremated and flushed down the toilet,” Ong wrote about Jee.
“According to Cayetano, Jee is a criminal drug dealer – not an EJK victim,” he added.
In another post, Ong questioned just why Cayetano forgot about the presumption of innocence, while showing photos of the kids who were killed in the drug war, including former UP student Karl Arnaiz, 17-year-old Kian delos Santos, among others.
“Whatever happened to presumption of innocence, due process, civil liberties? These kids are EJK victims, not criminals. Their lives taken away by killer-cops. Their families’ dignity trampled by this Government’s lies,” Ong wrote.
In the comments section, one netizen noted how the government uses Administrative Order (No. 35, Series of 2013) to define what extrajudicial killing is.
To this, Ong replied: “Yup. There’s a long review and debunking in Vera files. Basically the AO does not overturn international accepted definition (which applies via human rights conventions we entered). Also does not overturn an SC decision (which forms law of the land).”
Sources: ( gmanetwork.com )
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