SEC. ABELLA: 
Well, basically, we have to see it from the other perspective where he sees the whole thing from; he sees that the nation is really engulfed in a clear and present danger of a drug menace. And if you actually look at it, the results are that there are more than 500,000 people who have already surrendered. So, there is another perspective to the whole thing.

HASAN: 
But Human Rights Watch has called this ongoing spree of extra-judicial killing in the Philippines — ‘government sanctioned butchery.’ That’s you and your colleagues, Ernesto Abella, that they are accusing of butchery?

SEC. ABELLA: 
I can understand where they coming from. But really, Mr. Duterte has said again and again that he does not condone extra-judicial killings.

HASAN: 
You are suggesting that he doesn’t condone extra judicial killings, even though kill lists have been handed out, people have been shot in cold blood in the street. The President himself says, he does not care about human rights. And if he orders the killing of someone, he can’t be arrested, because ‘I have immunity,’ he says. Surely, you don’t agree with that. He is not above the law or is he?

SEC. ABELLA: 
He is not above the law. In fact, he knows the limit of the law. But again and again, he has also specified that the police are meant took act within the presumptions of regularity. And so this is where he’s coming from. There’s a lot of rhetoric going on. But they also need to see that there is a lot of response coming, in fact, with the surrenderees.

HASAN: 
Let me read a line to you from the Atlantic Magazine reporting on what’s now going on in the Philippines: Vigilantes killed the man who mocked the new National Police Chief. They shot at a cemetery and killed five people, including a mother and his son celebrating her birthday, leaving behind one sign for all of them. They killed a teenager, feeding his dog, who had no ties to drugs. You’re a former evangelical preacher. When you read stuff like this, when you see images of people lying dead in the street — some of them in the arms of their loved ones — does that not bother you at all? This vigilantism, this violence, it’s not very Christian is it? Where’s the mercy?

SEC. ABELLA: 
But, basically, what’s happening is that the President is responding in a very firm way … responding to it in a very firm way to what has happened to the country. So there is another perspective to this. And this perspective is that the nation is being flooded with drugs, and the extent to which the nation has been flooded has not been revealed only until now. And so that is exactly what is happening.

HASAN: 
But even with the nation is being flooded by drugs, as human rights groups and many journalists have been pointed, it’s not the top drug kingpins who were being taken out in these attacks; it’s people who are either riding rickshaws, people that are poorest members of the society are being taken out on the street. You are not tackling the core of the problem. This state’s is sponsored violence. This is—I mean, the President promised a hundred thousand dead people would be dropped into Manila Bay. How can you justify rhetoric like that?

SEC. ABELLA: 
Well, let’s put it this way: He has addressed it by, for example, number one, cleaning up the prisons. Addressing the fact that—

HASAN: 
We don’t need prison if we’re killing the people before they—

SEC. ABELLA: 
Well, there are people in prison and that’s where the drugs are coming from.

HASAN: 
This isn’t just about human rights or ethics. It’s also an issue of security and stability. Yours is a country that is struggling to put down both so-called Islamist insurgencies and communist insurgencies. And this so-called war on drugs – so soon in to a presidential term is only gonna make your country more violent, more chaotic, more unstable and more isolated on the international stage. Does that not worry you at all, the new government?

SEC. ABELLA: 
If you were here, you would see that there is peace beginning to settle into the land. I am not saying … the picture that you’re drawing seems to be a little bit dark and dreary. However, from where the people are coming from, there is a sense of security coming in, that the things that ought to have been addressed years back is now being addressed by somebody who has a firm political will.

HASAN: 
You say I’m painting a darker and dreary picture. Let me ask you this, more than 700 people have been killed since the President took office less than two months ago. Is that 700 too many or 700 too few in your view?

SEC. ABELLA: 
From my view, the 500,000 people who have already surrendered—

HASAN: 
With respect, Ernesto Abella, that’s not what I asked. Is 700 people dead too many or too few?

SEC. ABELLA: 
—is a clear indication that there is a clear and present danger. 
I understand. You’re putting it, you’re framing it in a way that puts me as if I was a sadistic murderer. You know, what I’m trying to say is that there is—

HASAN: 
Not at all, because you can say it’s too many. I’m not forcing you to say anything. It’s a very simple question: Have too many people being killed in the Philippines? You said, the President doesn’t condone this violence. Have too many been killed? Yes or no?

SEC. ABELLA: 
This ought not to be happening. This ought not to be happening if it had been addressed from years back. Now, what I’m saying is that, all these things that are happening right now are simply a cleaning up that ought to have been done a few years back.

HASAN: 
It’s not just drug dealers that the President is going after. He is also threatened journalists, too. He said in a press conference earlier this year, just because you’re a journalist you are not excepted from assassination if you are an S.O.B—I’m not going to use the full phrase that he used. He has very colorful offensive language. But that’s an outrageous thing to say about journalists, isn’t?

SEC. ABELLA: 
What he actually meant, and I’m not trying to spin him, what he actually meant was there are people who use journalism as a cover for being used for gain. For trying to come out with … he calls them… these are not real journalists, the bona fide journalists are fine. But there are people who use journalism as a cover.

HASAN: 
But you accept that in a country like the Philippines, which is one of the top ten most dangerous places for journalists in the world, hundreds of journalists killed since 1980s. Do you think that was irresponsible of the President to make remarks, off the cuff remarks, about assassinating journalists?

SEC. ABELLA: 
As I said, he was not referring to bona fide journalists. He was referring to those who use journalism—

HASAN: 
Okay, so those who use journalism should be assassinated is your view?

SEC. ABELLA: 
He’s not saying that they should be assassinated. He is just saying that these things happen to people who use—

HASAN: 
No, no, that’s what he said. With respect, Ernesto Abella, you said you’re not spinning him, so don’t spin him. What he exactly said is just because you are a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination. His words, not mine, not yours.

SEC. ABELLA: 
They were not journalists.

HASAN: 
Okay.

SEC. ABELLA: 
And they were not assassinated—

HASAN: 
But should people who are pretending to be journalists be assassinated?

SEC. ABELLA: 
I’m not saying that they should be assassinated, but—

HASAN: 
Well, that’s what your boss has said.

SEC. ABELLA: 
—it so happened that—well, I think you’re taking it out of context.

HASAN: 
Okay. I took his assassination remark out of context. Is it difficult being a press spokesman for a President who speaks in such controversial, many would say, offensive ways. A President who says he’d kill his own kids if they took drugs; who threatens to bomb the houses of elected mayors; who makes jokes about wanting rape women; who’s called the US Ambassador a gay S.O.B, and the Pope a son of a prostitute – well, actually a much worse word than prostitute? Your job must surely be an impossible one, having to spin for him?

SEC. ABELLA: 
Let’s put it this way, if you—I understand that there is a culture clash in here. But I understand where he’s coming from because it’s a particular subculture — the Cebuano subculture speaks on a very rough kind of humor. But I understand, that’s why my task is to be able to interpret him and act as a conduit and bring out the true intention of the President.

HASAN: 
What was the true intention when he said he wished he’d raped the woman before she’d been gang raped?

SEC. ABELLA: 
It was a joke that was … it’s difficult to translate it—

HASAN: 
No, he said after it, ‘I’m not joking. I wasn’t smiling. There’s no joke, it wasn’t a joke,’ he says. So it makes your job very hard when you’re trying to defend him.

SEC. ABELLA: 
I’m not trying to defend. I’m simply trying to act as a conduit for him.

HASAN: 
It’s a tricky job. Ernesto Abella, thanks for joining me on Up Front. That’s our show. The new series of Up Front will be back in September.