Human rights group Karapatan staged a demonstration outside the Interior and Local Government office in Quezon City on Friday, more than a week before President Rodrigo Duterte’s last State of the Nation Address.
“Calls for justice for the hundreds and thousands of killings in the course of the government’s sham drug war and counterinsurgency campaigns will be one of our resounding calls when Duterte delivers his last SONA,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan.
She said the president’s “accountability for the killings is very apparent, and he is likewise accountable for worsening the culture of impunity in the country.”
“Duterte is hounded by resounding calls for justice and accountability, that he is afraid and shaking at any investigation here and before international bodies,” said Palabay.
Prosecutors of the International Criminal Court have requested last month for a full investigation into the Philippines’ human rights situation.
Karapatan said it will continue to press for “justice on killings in the course of the government’s counterinsurgency campaign,” which the group claimed resulted in 409 victims, including victims of at least 25 incidents of massacres, since 2016.
