The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in their August 12 statement, described the anti-drug war of the Duterte regime to have “rapidly spiralled into a frenzied campaign of extra-judicial killings and vigilante murders perpetrated by the police and by police-linked criminal syndicates.” “Nearly 1,000 people have been killed in just a little more than one month. The rights of tens upon thousands of people are being violated as the criminal justice system is upturned,” the statement added.
The CPP also directly accused police officials to have “brazenly carried out summary killings against suspected drug peddlers and users. Hundreds have been killed while “resisting arrest” or while under custody and detention, in police cars as well as in jails.”
“Duterte’s ‘drug war’ has clearly become anti-people and anti-democratic. Human rights are being violated with impunity by police personnel, emboldened by Duterte’s assurances of ‘I got your back’ and his public declarations of contempt against human rights.
“The Duterte regime has unleashed unmitigated violence and threats of violence against the people, mostly victims and people at the lowest rungs of the criminal syndicate ladder. In contrast, the suspected big drug lords and their protectors are afforded courtesy calls to Malacañang, accommodations in Camp Crame’s guest house and preliminary investigations by the NBI. The worst that they have been made to undergo is to suffer the lectures of the PNP chief.
“What was before the burden of the accuser to prove someone’s guilt is now the burden of the accused to prove his innocence. Duterte has come up with one list after another of so-called protectors, narco-politicians and judges without proof nor clear basis for accusations of their involvement in drugs. He could not even tell the people how the lists were drawn. It is a mystery even to the chief intelligence officer and head of the PNP,” the CPP statement reads.
The CPP also said “Duterte has become so full of himself and intoxicated with the vast power he is not used to handle that he thinks he can get away with upturning the criminal judicial system and denouncing people for defending human rights. He dishes out threats of imposing martial law. He has made himself a laughing stock among legal circles. He, however, is not laughing and threatens anyone who chooses to stand in his way.”
Prophesying that Duterte’s drug war “is bound to fail,” the group said it does not address the socio-economic roots of the problem. “It has been proven in history that no amount of killing will succeed in putting an end to the drug menace. After ten years of the “anti-drug war” in Mexico, and with almost 80,000 people killed, the intensity of the drug problem remains the same if not worse. In Thailand, around 3,000 people were killed from 2003 to 2005, at least half of whom were later proved to be not involved in drugs. The drug problem has become worse.”
The CPP also denounced Duterte’s move to have the remains of former President Ferdinand Marcos’ buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. “Duterte’s decision on the Marcos burial displays extreme insensitivity to the sensibilities of thousands of victims, families and survivors of martial law barbarities. He insults the memory of thousands of patriotic Filipinos from all walks of life who gave up their lives at the prime of their youth to fight for the dictatorship’s overthrow.” The group further described the president as “bullheaded.”
“The revolutionary forces continue to stand against the political restoration of the Marcoses and demand that they be made to pay for all the crimes against the Filipino people,” they added.
The CPP was once an avid supported of the Duterte administration./TW Newsteam