Plans To Visit Ph, Guaranteed by UN Rights Expert

A reporter of United Nations rights told AFP on Monday that she had a schedule to visit the Philippines to investigate Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte's bloody campaign on war and drugs while seeking security affirmation for people she planned to speak with.

Just last week Duterte stated that he would only allow UN and EU experts to investigate into the thousands of killings since he took over the government on June 30,2016 and he also challenged them to face him publically into one of his debates.

Currently, the government has not yet to issue formal invitations, The UN reporter on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions who is named Agnes Callamard, declared she would solicit one.

"I welcome the reports recently (conveyed) through the media that the president and government of the Philippines will invite a UN mission to investigate the alleged extrajudicial executions," Callamard said in an email statement sent to AFP.

Callamard stated that she would insist on a range of measures to ensure that those who spoke with her did not face retribution.

"The date and scope of the fact-finding mission will be discussed and negotiated with the government, along with essential guarantees," she added.

Those would include "my freedom of movement and freedom of inquiry, and the assurance that those who cooperate with me will not be the object of retaliation, such as intimidation, threats, harassment or punishment," she added.

In May, Duterte won the presidential election in a landslide after he promised to put 100,000 criminals in bars as part of a campaign against illegal drugs

More than 3,300 people have been killed since Duterte took office, according to police reports.

Duterte recently urged police and even civilians to kill drug addicts as well as traffickers, and vowed to protect lawmen from prosecution.

However he has also insisted that he has not encouraged anything illegal but under the due process of the law.

According to the police, they shot dead about a third of the people killed so far in self defense, while the others were victims of intra-gang wars.

But rights groups contradicted police officials that are conducting extrajudicial killings and unleashing hired assassins, and that people with no links to the drug trade are being murdered as the rule of law crumbles.

The United Nations, the European Union, the United States and international human rights groups have all hated the killings.

Duterte has insisted he must continue his bloody fight to stop the Philippines from becoming a narco state.

Source: ABS-CBN