MALACAÑANG welcomed the Philippines' renewed membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and claimed it as a "repudiation" of those who are critical of the Duterte administration's deadly war on drugs.
“Getting a seat in the UN Human Rights Council is a repudiation of the critics and detractors on President Duterte's unrelenting war against illegal drugs,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said on Saturday, October 13.
The Philippines has been widely criticized for the loss of about 5,000 mostly poor suspected drug users since President Rodrigo Duterte took power in July 2016.
The President has denied condoning unlawful police killings though he has repeatedly threatened death to drug dealers.
But Panelo said the country's re-election to the 47-member UN rights body for another three years was a recognition that the government “respects human rights and will not tolerate abuse by those in authority.”
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“We thank and commend the UN Human Rights Council, as well as the States that supported our country’s bid, for affirming the Philippines’ brand of human rights advocacy under the Duterte administration as truly responsive to our people’s needs and aspirations for a better and more dignified life,” Panelo said in a statement.
The UN General Assembly on Friday, October 12, vote to fill one-third of the 47-member council for term the 2019 to 2021 term.
Earning 165 out of 192 votes from the UNHRC’s member-states, the Philippines has won a seat in the rights council, Panelo said.
In a Twitter post, Human Rights Watch (HRW) UN director Louis Charbonneau called the election a “mockery.”
The HRW on Thursday, October 11, said the Philippines should not be allowed in the UNHRC because of its "egregious human rights records.” It also claimed that there is a human rights crisis in the Philippines because of the deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.
Amnesty International (AI), a London-based non-government organization focused on human rights, said the country's inclusion, including another country Eritrea, "is a tremendous setback" to the fight against human rights.
AI USA's advocacy director Daniel Balson said, these countries participation in the UN human rights body "empowers them to fundamentally undermine notions of human rights that are accepted internationally."
US Ambassador Nikki Haley said "the lack of standards continues to undermine the organization and demonstrates again why the United States was right to withdraw from it" in June.
READ: US, rights groups slam Philippines, Erithrea win
Panelo stressed that the Philippines’s membership was proof that the member-states viewed the drug menace as “a global problem requiring its utmost attention in forcefully dealing with it and forging a united front against the purveyors of its proliferation across the frontiers of the world.”
“The Philippines is at the forefront of this gigantic fight and is showing the way how to slay the dragon of destruction,” he said.
“With the county's re-election, the President's campaign against illegal drugs, corruption, and criminality has, in effect, been acknowledged by the international community as essential to the protection of the right to life, liberty and property of every peace-loving and law-abiding citizen of our State,” he added. (SunStar Philippines)