NOW this is getting interesting. Secretary Ismael “Mike” Sueño of the Department of Interior and Local Government has bewailed multi-millions losses of dollars in aid and trade because of accusations of human rights violations against the Duterte administration.
He admitted during a press conference after the opening of the 15th Meeting of the Asean Senior Officials Responsible for Information at the SMX Convention Center in Bacolod City that the United States has not renewed its Millennium Challenge Corporation grant to the Philippines because of alleged human rights violations.
But the Secretary blamed it on forces seeking the release of Senator Leila de Lima from detention.
He blamed it on Vice President Leni Robredo and unnamed “you know who.”
Whoa, stop there. The Secretary should review his high school current events subject. Pronto.
Accusations on human rights violations on extra-judicial killings came from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR).
Sueño insisted that in Cabinet meetings, the President has never given the command: you kill those drug addicts, pushers, drug protectors.
Well hello, excuse me. What were the President’s response to these accusations? “Huwag kayong makinig dyan sa human rights (groups), because human rights is always the anti-thesis of government,” he told an audience of mostly policewomen in September 2016.
The following month, Reuters reported that the President noted that Hitler murdered millions of Jews and quipped “There are 3 million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I’d be happy to slaughter them. “If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have ...” said Duterte, pausing and pointing to himself.
For Europeans, making light of the number that the Nazis systematically murdered running into an estimated six million Jews. Broadly defined, however, the death toll including Soviet civilian deaths, could reach 17 million.
Before the 2016 ended, he advised the police that if suspects are unarmed, “O ‘pag walang baril…bigyan mo ng baril Here’s a loaded gun, fight because the mayor said, let’s fight.”
Sueño wants this multi-million largesse to benefit the Philippine government? Advise his Boss to seriously go after and arrest perpetrators of EJKs, throw the book at law enforcement agencies, and follow the due process of law in all criminal cases.
No more excuses. End impunity now!
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(bqsanc@yahoo.com)