UNITED Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard slammed Friday the Duterte administration's deadly crackdown on narcotics, saying the Philippine's war on drugs will not work.
Callamard, who made an unannounced visit in Manila on Thursday, was invited to speak at a forum on drug issues in Quezon City.
Citing data from the UN Office on Drug and Crime (ODC) Callamard shared that some 29 million people who use illegal drugs suffer from drug disorder and that drug trafficking is a major source of violence affecting the world.
Amid the increasing number of drug dependents, she stressed that the drug problem will not be cured by ill-conceived drug policies and that there are better scientific ways to combat drug trafficking.
Callamard said that in April 2016, the general assembly of worlds government recognize explicitly that "the war on drugs, be community based national or global, does not work."
The Philippines is a signatory in the said commitment to effectively address and counter the world drug problem.
All the heads of the state, in the said agreement, reaffirmed their determination to address the key causes and consequences of the drug problem in the societies.
According to Callamard, the UN has also found from comprehensive studies that "many harms associated with drugs are not caused by drugs but by the negative impact of badly thought out, ill-conceived drug policies."
"The joint commitment to affectively addressing and countering the world drug problems is a call for action but not to any kind of action. According to the world leaders there are other ways, better ways, evidence-based, scientific ways of combating drug abuse and trafficking. Ways that do not make matters worse," the UN official said.
"Badly though out ill-conceived drug policies not only fail to address substantively the problem, they add more problems," she added.
Callamard said that extrajudicial killings is one of the problems that will arise had the government failed to stop its ill-conceived drug policies.
"The badly though out, ill-conceived drug policies escalate, add compound problems such as killings, extra-judicial or by criminals gangs; the breakdown of rule of law, vigilante crimes, torture, ill treatment and sexual violence; prolonged pre-trial detention, mandatory sentencing, disproportionate long sentencing for drug possession, detention and drug and rehabilitation center without a trial or proper evaluation of drug dependency, non -consensual experimental treatments. All of those problems have been documented time and time and again," said Callamard.
The UN rapporteur said that the fight against drugs will also foster a regime of impunity that will not just affect the rule of law but also the society.
"Further, badly thought out, ill-conceived policy foster a regime of impunity infecting the whole justice sector and reaching into societies in invigorating the rule of violence rather than the rule of law, eroding the public trust in public institutions, breeding fear and leading people to despair. These have been well documented throughout the world," Callamard said.
"Let me be further clear. In none of the countries whether perverse consequences of ill thought out drug policies were reported — none of these countries did the drug problem disappear. In fact the exact opposite happened," she added.
Duterte in an earlier speech in Davao said Callamard is here in the country to investigate the extrajudicial killings that had ballooned since he assumed office last June.
This however was denied by the UN rapporteur on summary executions.
The president had previously challenged Callamard to debate with him in relation to his war on drugs, but the UN official refused to heed his request.
Callamard said she prefers a joint press conference with the Philippine president.
Duterte won the 2016 elections largely on a promise to end the proliferation of heinous crimes by eradicating illegal drug use. (VoxPop Philippines)
