The Philippine government on Wednesday, March 10, hit the United Nations human rights office for characterizing the deaths of 9 activists in Calabarzon as “arbitrary killings,” calling it a “prejudgment” of what were “legitimate police operations” in the country. 

In a series of tweets, the Philippine Mission to the United Nations Geneva defended the March 7 operations, where police and military served a total of 24 search warrants in the Calabarzon region, leading to 9 deaths and 6 arrests.

“We are appalled at OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) prejudging legitimate police operations on Sunday in the Philippines vs persons possessing dangerous firearms and explosive devices. We regret this overreach of  OHCHR’s mandate – clearly uninformed of facts on the ground,” the Philippines said. 

“There is no basis for calling deaths resulting from these operations as ‘arbitrary killings.’ Ops (Operations) were carried out strictly within the bounds of law, on 40 search warrants secured by the police after a rigorous legal process,” it added. 

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Leaders lost: The 9 activists killed by Duterte gov’t on ‘Bloody Sunday’

Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, earlier expressed concern that the March 7 incidents, tagged as “Bloody Sunday” in the Philippines, indicated an escalation in violence, intimidation, harassment and ‘red-tagging’ of human rights defenders.”

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The killings happened a few days after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered state forces to “kill” and “finish off” communist rebels in encounters, the latest in the violent rhetoric used by Chief Executive in his administration’s crackdown on activists. 

The March 7 crackdown was one of the biggest one-day offensives of the police and military against activist groups. While police said in their report that they were serving search warrants, progressive groups described them as executions.

The Philippines said all police operations during which deaths occurred would be subject to “automatic investigations.” “This will be true for the search ops in Luzon last Sunday,” it added. 

The Philippine Mission to the UN in Geneva then said that videos of the search operations appeared to be “lawful and in order,” and that police had seized various firearms and explosives from those served warrants. 

“We ask OHCHR to correct hasty opinions favoring violators of the law & instead support efforts to uphold law and order,”  it said. 

Rights groups and activists were often subject to trumped-up cases of illegal possession of firearms and explosives – the usual charges against activists. 

Meanwhile, the UN rights office on Tuesday, March 9, that the government’s investigation into this incident and similar incidents of violence “will be a critical test for the domestic investigative mechanisms it has established for cases of this kind.”

“Disappointed” by the bloody operations, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra earlier said he would include the Calabarzon killings in the Department of Justice’s task force probe into political killings. – Rappler.com