On the occasion of International Human Rights Day 2021, Malacañang has highlighted the programs that the Duterte administration has implemented "to reduce inequalities and advance human rights".

"(We) find satisfaction that, during the past six years, the President consistently introduced and implemented programs and projects to reduce inequalities and advance human rights," Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretary and Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea noted in a statement Friday, Dec. 10.

Medialdea said these initiatives include unprecedented free tertiary education; universal access to health care; a massive-scale infrastructure development in the form of "Build, Build, Build"; social amelioration to broaden the Filipino middle class; and an aggressive campaign to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic's surge and its ill-effects on people's health and the economy.

"Further, the administration had given its utmost effort to curb the proliferation of illegal drugs and criminality, to put an end to the decades-long struggle against local and international terrorists, and to eliminate deeply-entrenched corruption in many government offices," he said.

President Duterte's signature war against illegal drugs has earned him the criticism of human rights champions here and abroad due to alleged extrajudicial killings that the Department of Justice continues to investigate.

This campaign was slated to be investigated by the United Nations (UN)-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) this year, but the body decided last month to suspend the conduct of its probe.

Medialdea said the success of the administration’s endeavors "had benefitted our people who deserve protection and justice as much as the rest of us--the innocent victims who have suffered at the hands of heavy drug users, terror groups, corrupt government officials, and criminals".

He further recalled that the Chief Executive promised upon assuming office in 2016 that he would pursue social justice based on equal treatment and protection for the country’s poorest and most vulnerable, bring about improvement in our people's welfare and standard of living, and make human rights work to uplift human dignity.

"We all have seen those promises fulfilled, even in the midst of a pandemic which has affected us all," Medialdea reckoned.

"As we are once again called upon to exercise our right to suffrage next year, let us choose leaders whose track records speak of the capacity to sustain this momentum towards reducing inequalities and advancing human rights, because our people deserve the best public servants who can advance the interests of the disadvantaged and disenfranchised," he added.

This year's International Human Rights Day marks the 73rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).