De Lima to Rody: Don’t wag the dog

MANILA, Philippines – It was a “war crime,” but the deadly attack on the Davao City night market late Friday should not be used by President Duterte to “wag the dog,” Sen. Leila de Lima warned yesterday.

The attack occurred amid Duterte’s all-out war against the Abu Sayyaf and illegal drugs that has resulted in extrajudicial killings.

The Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility for the bombing as military troops continued its offensives against the bandits, who were still holding kidnap victims.  The police and the military said they were still awaiting the results of the investigation into the incident.

De Lima said the Friday night attack, which prompted the President to declare a state of lawlessness or lawless violence, must not be used to create a scenario to justify suppressing civil liberties and the political opposition.

Instead, the senator said Duterte might as well use his declaration to put an end to the summary executions along with terrorism.

De Lima, who is leading a Senate inquiry into the drug-related extrajudicial killings, said Duterte himself cited the summary executions in the past two months and now the terrorist attack in Davao as indications the country was in a state of lawlessness.

“Indeed, the summary executions that have been a regular daily fare in the past two months, at the rate of 36 per day, constitute none other than lawless violence,” she said.

“If this declaration can stop the street killings, together with the terrorist attacks, then so much the better.  All killings must stop, whether perpetrated by terrorist groups hiding in the jungle or unknown assailants roaming our streets,” she added.

To fend off criticisms, the President maintains the government does not sanction or tolerate extralegal killings in the course of his war against drugs.

Duterte has also accused De Lima of benefiting from drug money through her driver-bodyguard and alleged lover, Ronnie Dayan, while she was still justice secretary exercising supervision over the New Bilibid Prison.

The senator called out PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa and “a well-known ideologue” of the Duterte administration, whom she did not identify, for apparently raising scenarios that the incident was an act of “narco-terrorism, or worse, as having been funded by the political opposition without any verification or validation.”

Local policemen who swept the blast sites recovered several metal fragments in the area indicating that an improvised explosive device (IED) fashioned from a mortar round was used in the attack.

“We fervently hope that this tendency among some prominent officials and close advisers of the President is an isolated perspective, and does not represent a consensus in Malacañang to use each and every terrorist attack on our people, whether on the civilian population or the military and our security forces, as an opportunity to wag the dog,” she said.

De Lima was apparently referring to the 1997 movie “Wag the Dog” starring Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman, where the US president created a war scenario to cover up for a sex scandal.

“This is not the time to use a terrorist attack of a rebel extremist group to loosely and recklessly paint a picture of a conspiracy against the state among drug lords, the terrorists and the legitimate political opposition,” she said.

The government must be clear on who the enemies of the state are and calibrate its response in accordance with the threat to national security that they represent, she said.

According to De Lima, the declaration of state of lawlessness is allowed under the Constitution that simply means the President is authorized to call out the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to help its civilian counterpart, the Philippine National Police (PNP), in suppressing the lawless violence.

The authority does not give either the AFP or PNP additional powers beyond what is allowed under the Constitution, she pointed out.

De Lima asked the people to be vigilant so the government response to the crisis would not result in the restriction of their civil liberties and political rights.

She described the bombing not only a terrorist act, “but a violation of international humanitarian law as a war crime consisting of an attack on a civilian population, specifically if perpetrated by a terrorist rebel group like the Abu Sayyaf.”

“Those responsible for this bombing are not only terrorists, they are also war criminals,” the senator said.