‘People of the Philippines, your President is a murderer’

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Leila de Lima called yesterday President Duterte a murderer, saying he practically admitted ordering the slaying of drug-linked Albuera, Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa inside his jail cell last month.

“Now, we all know that the order and command to murder Espinosa in cold blood came from none other than the President himself,” De Lima said in a statement. “People of the Philippines, your President is a murderer.” 

De Lima noted that the President practically admitted ordering the killing of Espinosa in his speech last Wednesday. 

“The President, in a speech yesterday, said: ‘Hindi ko pababayaan ang mga pulis na ito dahil ako ang may utos (I will not abandon the police, for I gave the order),’ referring to the CIDG team who, according to the National Bureau of Investigation, summarily executed Mayor Rolando Espinosa. That is an admission that he is the mastermind of such extrajudicial killing,” De Lima pointed out. 

“That says it all about the EJK phenomenon. Together with Edgar Matobato’s testimony on the Davao death squad (DDS), Duterte’s admission seals his fate as the Father of all EJKs, first in Davao City, now throughout the entire Philippines, with the number of his victims now beyond the five-thousand mark, and still rising,” she said.

According to De Lima, Supt. Marvin Marcos, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Region 8, and his men, who caused the death of Espinosa, are part of an “expanded DDS,” now national in scope and operation. 

“Nothing can be clearer than that. What we now have is a presidential death squad,” she noted. 

She said the committee report prepared by Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs chairman Sen. Richard Gordon should be amended in light of the President’s supposed admission of the crime. 

The Senate committee report, which probed alleged extrajudicial killings under the Duterte administration, noted that no evidence supports allegations of state-sponsored killings taking place in the country. 

Gordon also dismissed the testimony given by Matobato, a self-confessed member of the DDS, which implicated Duterte in the alleged killings that took place in Davao City when he was still mayor.

“Let us pray that our President finally sees the light and puts a stop to all the killings in time for Christmas,” De Lima said. “Let us pray that our President starts fearing God and respecting the gift of life in this season of love and hope.”According to her, there is now more ground to impeach the President because his “admission” could be considered high crime. 

“That is high crime. It is not only betrayal of public trust, not only culpable violation of the Constitution, but also high crime. That is a ground (for impeachment), other high crimes and certainly extrajudicial killings are high crimes,” De Lima said.

CHR probes 500 drug-related killings

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is investigating over 500 drug-related killings in the present administration, data released to the media yesterday showed.

As of the end of November, the CHR’s extrajudicial killing task force has started investigating 388 cases involving the death of 487 people in different parts of the country.

Twenty-one more cases have yet to be docketed at the CHR regional office in Central Visayas, although subpoenas to involved police officers have already been issued.

In the docketed cases, 202 were identified as police operations, while 186 were alleged vigilante killings or summary executions linked to illegal drugs.

CHR received complaints in 29 cases, while the remaining 359 incidents were motu proprio investigations or those initiated by the agency’s regional offices and central office.

The cases under investigation include those where the victims were killed under custody of law enforcement agencies, such as the deaths of JP and Renato Bertes inside a Pasay City police station in July.

Also being investigated is the death of three Chinese inmates at the Davao Prison and Penal Farm in August.

The commission created the task force in response to the rising number of deaths in the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

Based on latest data from the Philippine National Police, 2,004 people have been killed in over 38,500 police-related operations conducted from July 1 to Nov. 30 this year.

The figures exclude vigilante-style executions, which number over 3,000 as of the end of last month.

While the task force seeks to probe all killings, CHR chairman Chito Gascon earlier admitted resource constraints limit the agency’s capability to keep pace with what he described as unprecedented spate of killings in the country.

Gascon challenged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the cases and deliver justice to the victims, stressing that their jurisdiction is only fact-finding and recommendatory.

“The burden of conducting thorough criminal investigation is primarily with the law enforcement agencies of the government, such as the police and the DOJ, as they have access to the necessary human resources and facilities to undertake the same,” he said.

“The CHR as a watchdog and monitoring institution has the role of reminding government agencies of their responsibilities as duty bearers. Secretary (Vitaliano) Aguirre cannot shift the burden of delivering justice to others, as it is his,” he added, referring to the head of the DOJ.   – With Janvic Mateo