BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
FORMER president Rodrigo Duterte made a stunning admission during the Oct. 28 hearing when he told the senators in reference to the police killings: “Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do … I and I alone take full legal responsibility for everything that the police have done pursuant to my order. I will be accountable; I will be the one who will go to jail; spare the police who followed my orders. I pity them; they just did their job.”
The former president also said he had ordered the police to encourage suspects to resist so that they would have a reason to kill them: “What I said is this: let’s be frank, I said, encourage the criminal to fight, encourage them to draw their guns. That was my instruction, encourage them to fight, and if they fight, then kill them so my problem in my city is done.”
Those at the hearing were stunned into silence by this admission.
It was only Sen. Risa Hontiveros who asked him if he really meant what he said.
“Yes,” he replied.
She asked him again: “Para masabing nanlaban (Just to say the suspect fought back)?”
“Correct,” answered Duterte.
“It is very incorrect, if I may say as a civilian,” she replied.
The ex-president told the senator she had no experience running a city.
“If I were to go back to service, I’d do it again, twice over,” he said to applause from the gallery.
Former senator Leila de Lima joined in declaring that Duterte, with his statement, confirmed the Davao Death Squad’s existence and his involvement in it.
“These [admissions] are very clear: [the] Davao Death Squad [liquidating] criminals and suspected criminals, inducing, encouraging and prodding people to kill, directly or indirectly, is not part of the job of an executive official, whether it’s mayor or president,” de Lima told the hearing.
The Senate hearing was a travesty of justice. Several senators appeared to trivialize the “war” or condone the admissions of Duterte and Senator Dela Rosa.
When this writer wrote about the killing of street children and human rights workers in Davao City by the Davao Death Squad, he was charged with libel by then-mayor Benjamin de Guzman and arraigned in court.
When public support for the child victims grew, and hundreds of protesters outside the courthouse were shown on television, de Guzman backed down and withdrew his charges at the last minute.
No matter the trivialization of mass murder, the perpetrators must be held accountable for their countless heinous crimes./PN
