HRW compares crackdown on ‘tambays’ to martial law

New York City-based human advocacy group Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on the Philippine National Police (PNP) to end its “anti-loitering” crackdown, saying in a statement it “(evoked) memories of arbitrary police targeting of the urban poor during the 1972-1981 Martial Law period under the late (dictator) Ferdinand E. Marcos.”
According to HRW Deputy Asia Director Phelim Kine, “[t]he Philippine National Police are conducting a ‘crime prevention’ campaign that essentially jails low-income Filipinos for being in public.”
“The great majority of those arrested are known as ‘tambays,’ shirtless men who congregate on city streets in poorer neighborhoods, often drinking alcohol in public,” Mr. Kine noted.
He added: “Typically, they are not brought before a judge, but detained for a period and then released, though sometimes criminal charges are brought.” — Dane Angelo M. Enerio