Senator Bong Go, who is also President Rodrigo Duterte’s personal aide, has promised body bags for all those who are spreading "fake news" about COVID-19 in the Philippines.
The country’s GMA news network cited him as saying that he had “extra body bags for those who may need them, even for drug addicts and fake news peddlers”.
The remarks came after local TV reports that the country’s hospitals had run out of body bags in connection with the increasing coronavirus death toll, which were dismissed by the government as “fake news”.
Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, Mung Yu Hah was quick to condemn the senator over “the callous threats” which he said indicate that “a tone-deaf [Philippine] government is unwilling to keep everybody safe during this global pandemic”.
“This dangerous rhetoric must stop now”, Mung Yu Hah warned, adding that the senator’s comments create “a chilling effect on journalists and whistle-blowers who seek to expose gaps and problems”.
“Such dangerous language is never acceptable. Coming so soon after President Duterte’s alarming ‘shoot to kill’ order, this is a clear pattern of incitement that is consistent with the government’s general hostility towards human rights”, the Amnesty International official emphasised.
He called on the Philippine government to “put all people’s rights to health and life at the centre of its plans and actions” rather than continue to “issue threats”.
Duterte Says Police Will Kill Rioters Amid COVID-19 Lockdown
Mung Yu Hah’s warning followed President Duterte promising on 1 April that he would order the police and the military to kill those Filipinos who oppose the country’s lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I will not hesitate. My orders are to the police and military, as well as village officials, if there is any trouble, or occasions where there's violence and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead. Do not intimidate the government. You will lose”, Duterte said in a televised address to the nation.
He spoke hours after police arrested 21 people for protesting without permission in Quezon, one of the Philippines’ largest cities, riots that Duterte blamed on the left-leaning urban poor group Kadamay.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Philippines has soared to 5,223, with at least 335 fatalities, according to the latest updates from the country’s Health Department.
