DAVAO City–The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has called for an end to the killings of people on mere suspicion of involvement in illegal drugs even as it withdrew its support for President Duterte’s war method against illegal drugs, calling it “anti-people and anti-democratic.”
In a statement, the CPP urged 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.
But it said that the CPP’s armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), would continue its operations against illegal drug operators and protectors despite the withdrawal of support for Duterte’s campaign.
It said Duterte’s war on illegal drugs became a “frenzied campaign of extra-judicial killings” involving suspects who reportedly resisted arrest.
It warned that Duterte’s campaign is set to unleash more violence, counter-violence, and political maneuverings, with close to 1,000 drugelated 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,” the CPP said.
The Communist Party 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 questioned why suspected big drug lords and protectors were afforded courtesy calls on the President himself and accommodated at the guest house of the National Police in Camp Crame.
The CPP 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.”
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.
On Thurday, a day before the CPP issued the statement, suspected NPA rebels burned a boom sprayer truck owned by Del Monte Philippines in Impasug-ong town, Bukidnon.
Capt. Patrick Martinez, spokesperson of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, said three unidentified men armed with pistols stopped the boom sprayer truck and told the driver to leave the vehicle.
Martinez said the armed men poured gasoline on the truck and left it burning at Field 87 Pineapple plantation, Zone 3, Barangay Impalutao in Impasug-ong town on Thursday evening.
He said Del Monte reported that the truck cost P6 million.
Army and police authorities urged witnesses to come forward to identify the culprits.
Del Monte Philippines operations in Bukidnon have been subjected to numerous attacks by NPA rebels in the past.
NPA rebels attacked Del Monte’s main camp in Camp Philips in Manolo Fortich town, Bukidnon and destroyed several trucks in February 2013, killing a security guard and injuring three others. (antonio colina IV and froilan gallardo mindanews)
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