MANILA – Despite criticisms on President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, the Philippines still landed a seat at the United Nations Human Rights Council in an election held in New York.
The country got 165 votes from 192 member-states to earn another three-year term in the council on Friday, said incoming Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) chief Teodoro Locsin Jr.
“We won!” Locsin said in a statement posted on DFA’s Twitter account.
Alan Peter Cayetano, the outgoing DFA chief, welcomed the development despite a push by the international group Human Rights Watch (HRW) to reject the Philippines’ reelection bid.
The HRW has earlier urged the UN body not to grant another term to the Philippines due to the administration’s drug war, where they claimed that more than 12,000 suspected drug dealers have been killed in antidrug operations.
“Our successful bid to keep our seat in the Council is proof that many in the international community remain convinced the Philippines respects and protects human rights and have seen through the efforts of some to politicize and weaponize the issue,” Cayetano said.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International’s advocacy director Daniel Balson said “elevating states with records of gross human rights violations and abuses is a tremendous setback” for the UN.
“It puts them on the world stage, and moreover, it empowers them to fundamentally undermine notions of human rights that are accepted internationally,” he added.
United States Ambassador Nikki Haley said the “lack of standards continues to undermine the organization and demonstrates again why the United States was right to withdraw from it” in June.
The Philippines will be among 47-member states of the council from 2019 to 2021, following its election in 2015. The country first earned a seat in the council from 2007 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014.
Also elected to the UN body are Argentina, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Czech Republic, Denmark, Eritrea, Fiji, India, Italy, Somalia, Togo, and Uruguay. (With a report from AP/PN)
