DAVAO CITY (MindaNews /14 August) — The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has called for an end to police and vigilante killings involving drug suspects as it withdrew its cooperation with President Rodrigo Duterte in his anti-illegal drugs campaign, calling it “anti-people and anti-democratic.”
In a statement posted on cpp.ph last August 12, the CPP urged the people to unite and demand for justice and an end to police and vigilante killings, and to defend human rights.
“The CPP calls on the people to struggle against the rampant problem of drug addiction, as they wage revolutionary struggle to overthrow the system that perpetuates it as well as other forms of oppression. The most effective way of waging war against drugs is by rousing the people and mobilizing them to become active participants in social revolution,” it said.
The CPP’s armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), will continue its operations against anti-illegal operators and protectors despite the withdrawal of support for Duterte’s drug war.
It said Duterte’s drug war became a “frenzied campaign of extra-judicial killings” involving suspects who reportedly resisted arrest.
It added that Duterte’s drug war is set to unleash more violence, counter-violence, and political maneuverings, with close to 1,000 drug-related killings within the first month of his administration.
“Police officials 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,” it said.
The CPP also claimed that Duterte launched an unmitigated violence and threats of violence against the victims and the “people at the lowest rungs of the criminal syndicate ladder.”
It also questioned why suspected big drug lords and protectors were afforded courtesy calls on the President himself and accommodated at the guest house of the Philippine National Police in Camp Crame.
The CPP also lambasted Duterte, who it described to be “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,” it added.
The CPP added Duterte’s “drug war will not succeed for not addressing the socio-economic roots of the problem.
Drug addiction, it said, must be addressed through economic, political, and cultural means.
“They must unite to defend human rights. At the same time, the people should amplify their urgent clamor for jobs and land to improve their economic condition, make them productive and draw them away from social misery and desperation, in order to, thus, end the conditions for the proliferation of drugs,” it said.
The CPP claimed it has been successful in weeding out drug addiction in areas where revolutionary forces exercise authority. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)