Palace hits UN official’s meddling

MALACAñANG on Saturday scored United Nations special rapporteur on summary executions Agnes Callamard for her incomprehension of Philippine realities and imposing liberal Western values on an Asian nation. 

“The President [Rodrigo Duterte] finds the pronouncements from certain bodies as unwelcome meddling in national matters,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement on Saturday.

“The liberal Western values being imposed [on] an Asian nation that places premium on common good is both insensitive and displays a lack of appreciation for the diversity of global culture,” he added. 

Abella said the Philippines has not extended any invitation to any international body to meddle into its national affairs. “We are capable of [conducting] our own internal dialogue,” he said.

Abella also clarified that there was nothing official in the remark of Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo that Callamard should visit the country to see for herself.

“In an unofficial exchange between the Legal Counsel and UN mouthpieces, the latter assumed they were offered an invitation to come and investigate the spike in drug related deaths being labeled as extra-judicial, or a license to kill freely,” Abella said. 

“The so-called investigations by third parties are objectionable interference in the household affairs of a nation whose citizens welcome the change that the President and his people-friendly policies and programs have set in place,” Abella said. 

Abella said the “seeming incomprehension by local and international observers” was “more alarming than the pandemic use and trade of illegal drugs in the Philippines.”

Abella said the President has made it clear that arresting officers are allowed to defend themselves, their lives or their teams. The same police enforcers are subject to rule of law should they go beyond their mandate.

“The President operates under the presumption of regularity in the drive against drugs,” he said.