News Roundup 17 September 2020
Sep 17, 2020 • 4 min Read
3,375 new COVID-19 cases bring Philippine tally to over 276,000 | PHILSTAR.COM – The country’s coronavirus caseload jumped past 276,000 Thursday after the Department of Health announced 3,375 additional infections. The DOH also logged 317 new recoveries, with the country’s recovery count rising to 208,096. The death toll, meanwhile, reached 4,785 as 53 more people succumbed to the disease.
Analysis on ‘drug war’ deaths that PCOO rejected is from data that PCOO released — Human Rights Watch | PHILSTAR.COM – Rights watchdog Human Rights Watch on Thursday night stressed that its figures on ‘drug war’ killings that the Palace has disputed are from government sources. HRW Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson issued the statement after Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar dismissed the assertion that drug-related killings went up by 50% during the pandemic as having “weak methodological anchor and severely falsifies realities in the country.” But, Robertson pointed out on Thursday, “the analysis is based on the official government figures published by #RealNumbersPH, which is issued by the Presidential Communications Operations Office based on figures coming from different government agencies involved in the ‘war on drugs,’ mainly the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.” In a September 8 dispatch, HRW said that it had found that 155 people were killed in the past four months against 103 people killed from December 2019 to March 2020. The difference between 155 and 103 is 52, which is 50.49% of 103. “It was not hard to find this information,” Robertson said Thursday. “The number of fatalities in these ostensible drug enforcement raids, in which the police routinely claimed that the victims fought back, jumped dramatically from the 26 deaths recorded by the PDEA in five months from July to November 2019,” HRW also said in its September 8 dispatch. “Instead of playing its usual silly ‘shoot the messenger’ game by attacking critics, and trying to introduce distracting arguments, we advise the PCOO and the PNP chief General Camilo Cascolan to look at their own numbers again. Human Rights Watch did not introduce any new figures in the dispatch. Everything in it was based on #RealNumbersPH,” Robertson said, adding the 50-percent estimate is low.
Government lost P1 billion in overpriced PPE deals – Hontiveros | INQUIRER.NET – The government may have lost at least P1 billion in taxpayer money after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) purchased allegedly overpriced personal protective equipment (PPE) from five Chinese companies, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said on Wednesday. Hontiveros made the claim two days after Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon flagged the Procurement Service of the DBM (PS-DBM) for supposedly buying COVID-19 test kits and other medical equipment that were more expensive by more than P400 million than those procured by private groups. Worse, she said, the PS-DBM awarded the multibillion-peso supply contracts for PPE within a two-month period to the Chinese companies instead of giving these to local manufacturers, which had already been complaining about the government’s preference for imported face masks and medical coveralls.
Int’l church bodies urge ‘impartial probe’ into human rights violations in PH | Manila Bulletin – Several international church organizations and institutions have supported the call for the UN Human Rights Council to “establish an on-the-ground independent, impartial investigation into human rights violations in the Philippines.” In a statement titled “Unity Statement for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in the Philippines”, the groups said as church people from around the world, they are responding to the call to stand with the Filipino people in light of the “deteriorating situation of civil liberties and human rights in the Philippines.” “We continue to raise the alarm on the disturbing proliferation of killings, human rights violations and attacks on civil liberties in the Philippines. We commit ourselves to bear witness in word and in deed, by advocating and educating about these commitments in our own countries, with our governments and diplomats, and in our agencies and work places,” read the statement.
US sends top-level diplomat to Taiwan, defying China | The Manila Times – A top United States diplomat will arrive in Taiwan on Thursday, the highest-ranking State Department official to visit in 40 years, in a further sign of Washington’s willingness to defy China and its campaign to isolate the self-ruled island. Keith Krach, undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, was heading to Taipei to attend a memorial service for late leader Lee Teng-hui on Saturday, the US State Department said. The trip, the second high-ranking US visit in as many months, is likely to rile China, which balks at any recognition of Taiwan and has mounted a decades-long policy of marginalizing the democratic island.
