THE newly named top police commander of the Philippines — Director General Oscar Albayalde, who was sworn in Thursday — pledged Friday to keep up President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug war.“How to sustain the drug war? In order to sustain it, we will not change anything,” Albayalde told reporters at his first press conference as commander.He took over from Ronaldo Dela Rosa, who retired with hero’s honours this week after helping Duterte launch the bloody crackdown.“Why would we stop a program that is very effective?” Albayalde added, citing “very good momentum and gains”.Albayalde’s comments came as the Philippines pushed back against a European Union Parliament resolution voted on Thursday that criticised the crackdown.The EU lawmakers called “on the government of the Philippines to put an immediate end to the extrajudicial killings in the pretext of a ‘war on drugs'”.It also expressed “grave concern over credible reports to the effect that the Philippine police force is falsifying evidence to justify extrajudicial killings”.Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano on Thursday denounced the EU parliamentary resolution as “interference” in Manila’s internal affairs, describing it as “biased” and “based on wrong information”.Duterte last month pulled his country from the International Criminal Court after The Hague-based body’s chief prosecutor launched an initial examination into allegations lodged against the president over his drug war.He also threatened to arrest the chief ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, if she tried to enter the Philippines to pursue her investigation.On Sunday the Philippines deported EU politician Giacomo Filibeck, who has previously criticised Duterte’s crackdown, and on Monday briefly detained an elderly Australian nun who has been critical of alleged human rights violations by Philippine soldiers.Source: http://conceptnewscentral.com/index.php/2018/04/21/agbayalde-vows-to-pursue-drug-war/
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