Senator Grace Poe called out President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration to respect to human rights, saying that the rights record of the country can affect any international assistance that the Philippines might need.
Recently, the United States put a stop to the sale of assault rifles to the Philippines because of human rights concerns directly connected to Duterte’s war on drugs. Duterte’s brutal campaign against drugs has an astounding record of 3,000 deaths in just four months.
When Poe was asked for her comment, she said that U.S. has maintained a policy “to take into consideration human rights concerns with whatever assistance it extends to a country,” and this includes weapons.
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“It would do well for the interest of the Philippines and its citizens around the globe to maintain our country’s good standing with respect to our relations with other countries, including the European Union too, by upholding human rights in the effort to combat illegal drugs,” she said in an interview with Inquirer.
“Human rights and the antidrug efforts need not be mutually exclusive,” Poe added.
Senator Antonio Trillanes, through a text message to Inquirer, warned of greater repercussions because of the ongoing campaign against drugs.
“That’s just the start. Things would probably get worse in the coming months as our countrymen get hit from different directions at different levels,” Trillanes said.
“But to be clear, contrary to President Duterte’s big lie, the US didn’t start this. He did, when he started killing his own people and didn’t want to be accountable for it,” he added.
The halt to the sale of 27,000 rifles by the US State Department to the Philippines happened after US Senator and member of the US Senate’s foreign relations committee Ben Cardin brought up the current administration’s questionable human rights record and the increasing number of extrajudicial killings in the country.
Earlier, the San Francisco Police Department ended its exchange program with PNP due to concerns over human rights violations.
Source: (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
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