MANILA - Senator Leila de Lima questioned Sunday the guidelines set by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for United Nations (UN) officials who are set to investigate summary killings of drug suspects in the country.
"While it is within the prerogative of the Philippine government as the host country, through the DFA, to set reasonable parameters for the visit of the UN special rapporteurs and other UN probers, I find questionable the announced rule that it is the government that will decide the places to be visited and the persons to be interviewed by these probers," De Lima said.
"What kind of investigation can we expect if the government is going to decide how the investigation is going to be conducted by UN rapporteur's team?"
Last Thursday, Duterte invited officials of the UN and European Union (EU) to conduct a probe on his war on drugs.
On the same day, the DFA laid down protocols that UN rapporteurs and EU rights experts must agree to before they are allowed to visit the country -- including a prohibition on visiting slum areas, where most of the victims of summary executions live.
DFA Secretary Charles Jose said foreign investigators will not be allowed to go there for safety reasons.
De Lima, however, deemed the parameters as "censorship and control" that will only assail the probe's independence.
"What is the sense of inviting independent probers if they are not going to be allowed freedom of movement and action, and are going to be dictated upon on the extent of their visits and sources of information?
"Under any standards, an investigation under such constraints can no longer be deemed independent. Protocol does not mean censorship and control over the ability of the UN team to conduct an independent, credible and exhaustive probe," she pointed out.
Over 1,700 drug suspects have been killed since Duterte won the elections in May, based on monitoring by the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group. A total of 1,020 people were killed in police operations and 581 killed by unidentified assailants from May 10 to September 21.
It was De Lima who filed Monday a Senate resolution urging the executive department to invite UN experts to look into the spate of drug-related killings.
Her resolution was filed on the same day that she was ousted as chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, a capacity in which she led a legislative inquiry on the rising death toll of the war on drug.
SOURCE: ABS-CBN
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