MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte should allow the United Nations to investigate his war on drugs, and abandon a deadly campaign that has been a failure and a dent on the country's international image, Vice President Leni Robredo said Wednesday.
The crackdown has overwhelmingly targeted the poor rather than big drugs networks, Robredo said in an interview, adding that Duterte's violent rhetoric was aiding a culture of police impunity for which international help should be sought if the government refused to change tack.
Robredo, who was elected separately to Duterte and has a frosty relationship with the President, said the thousands of people killed were already too many, with no evidence of a decline in drug supply or usage.
"We ask ourselves, 'why is this still happening?'. The president has already made very serious threats to drug syndicates, to drug lords ... and yet it's still very prevalent, so obviously, it's not working," Robredo told Reuters.
"We have seen a lot of police that have abused their powers and not been penalized. So this is where the International Criminal Court (ICC) could come in if we do not show the world that we can take care of our own mess."
She added: "The lives of our people are on the line and the dignity of our country is on the line, but my first call is for our government to take care of the mess."
The authorities reject activists' allegations that drug dealers and users are being executed and say the more than 7,000 people killed by police had all resisted arrest. Police say they have no connection to the mysterious murders of thousands more drug users.
Duterte is furious at a resolution in July by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the bloodshed, and he last year withdrew the Philippines' membership of the ICC after it launched a preliminary examination into alleged crimes against humanity.
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