© Edward Markey’s Facebook Page and US Senate’s Website
United States senators urged their government to address the Duterte administration’s alleged press freedom and human rights abuses in a letter to US Secretary of the State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday.
Senators Edward Markey, Patrick Leahy, Richard Durbin, Benjamin Cardin and Jeffrey Merkley requested the Trump administration to present a strategy to counter these violations.
The senators called out the US government’s inaction towards these abuses, despite having the authority to sanction President Rodrigo Duterte under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
They also took the Trump administration to task for continuing to engage in arms deals with the Philippines and reinstating Sen. Bato Dela Rosa’s US visa despite his supposed involvement in the drug war as the former national police chief.
“We value the partnership between the United States and the Philippines, but we must stand up against the brutal tactics of the Duterte government, particularly when they are used against American citizens,” the legislators said in the letter.
The legislators pointed to Duterte’s crackdown on critics and the media, including the shutdown of the country’s largest television and broadcasting network ABS-CBN, detention of Sen. Leila de Lima, and the case filed against Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr. Ressa has both Filipino and US citizenships.
The senators also raised concern over the recent passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act, citing its loose definition of terrorism that criminalizes “incitement,” claiming that this could make the law susceptible to being used as a tool to crack down against critics.
The senators called on the Trump administration to submit a response to their queries by Aug. 19, 2020. Carlito P. Topacio