The executioner

How damaging to President Duterte is the story of Arthur Lascañas?

In terms of the President’s approval ratings, probably not much. Rodrigo Duterte the candidate even joked about the neutralization of criminals in Davao City when he was mayor, and the stories about death squads under his supervision are nothing new.

In fact, I think there are people who picked him as president precisely because they wanted him to do all over the country what he did in Davao. Dirty Rody is the first person to be brought to power on a platform of killing drug dealers and other criminals.

Duterte’s rivals during the campaign failed to grasp this public sentiment, understandably finding the idea incomprehensible. They used the issue of death squads and gross human rights violations against him, while Duterte happily used the issue as his selling point. And he won by a landslide. That should give you an idea of what people might think of Lascañas’ story.

Legally, the President is immune from suit while in office, especially from offenses attributed to him when he was mayor.

He can be impeached, but with his still immense popularity, his super majority in the House of Representatives and his Senate majority will stand by him.

A coup d’etat or mutiny? This commander-in-chief has fervidly courted military support, and seems to genuinely feel the pain of every soldier killed or wounded in action. In this rumor-mad town, there is no buzz about any brewing coup.

People power? The administration can field its own warm bodies for a show of support for the President.

There’s another option: Sen. Leila de Lima urged Cabinet members to oust the President by declaring him unfit for office. The unanimous Cabinet reaction to this call yesterday was, dream on.

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This leaves human rights groups with one last option, which is to take the accusations against Duterte before the International Criminal Court. But rigorous requirements must be met before the ICC steps in.

The rights advocates will have to back testimonies or “public confessions” with other pieces of solid evidence. The main criticism against Lascañas is that apart from being a repentant (he claims) serial executioner, he can also add “inconsistent witness” to his list of claims to notoriety.

Of course Lascañas also presents a plausible explanation for his about-face on Du30 and the Davao death squads: his life, and those of several people close to him, are under threat. In the age of Tokhang and Double Barrel, such threats cannot be taken for granted.

Those securing Lascañas should protect him not only from “salvaging” but also from being snatched and made to change his story. Another about-face will doom Lascañas as a witness on anything.

In fact his about-face was what Duterte’s congressional allies harped on yesterday, even as the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs announced it would look into Lascañas’ “confession.”

Committee head and former police chief Sen. Panfilo Lacson, no stranger to “neutralizing” crime suspects, stressed that the inquiry aimed mainly to unearth information from Lascañas that would help craft relevant legislation.

Judging from the reactions yesterday, Lascañas could end up like another self-confessed member of the death squads, Edgar Matobato, who now faces criminal charges. Since Lascañas made a public admission, he can expect to be slapped with a multiple murder case, to include the killing of his two brothers.

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Human rights advocates will be frustrated by the public reaction to Lascañas’ story. People are rightly horrified by his narration of the murders of a pregnant woman, her young son, father-in-law and two helpers. But there are also people who think the woman’s husband, a confirmed kidnapper, had it coming when he was executed by the death squad allegedly on Duterte’s order. The other fatalities, all potential witnesses to the kidnapper’s execution, were silenced.

The story validated Dirty Rody’s warning, often repeated in public, to criminals: “Don’t f*** with me because I will kill you.”

Again, this public tolerance for the summary execution of crime suspects is due to deep frustration over the weakness of the criminal justice system.

I’m sure there are a good number of Filipinos who wouldn’t mind if the cops implicated in the kidnapping and brutal murder of South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo or the fatal shooting of children in the course of Tokhang are themselves killed in a vigilante drive-by shooting, or found dead on a sidewalk with their heads wrapped in plastic and packing tape.

More problematic for the President and his defenders is the murder of broadcaster Jun Pala allegedly for being critical of Duterte as Davao mayor.

Duterte’s hand in Pala’s death has been suspected from Day One. This was reinforced by Du30’s statement at the start of his presidency that Pala had it coming. Yesterday the usually pugnacious President was silent on Lascañas’ claims, refraining from comment even in a public speech.

If Lascañas is telling the truth about Pala’s killing, it will be one of the rare cases in which a mastermind in the murder of a journalist has been identified. Other political kingpins have been suspected but never indicted in a host of other deadly attacks on journalists in the past decades.

Biased and unfair media commentary is a criminal offense in this country, so aggrieved parties can seek redress through the courts rather than resort to murder. But politicians find it simpler to permanently silence their critics rather than pursue a case for libel or slander before the courts. Especially if the politicians control every aspect of the criminal justice system in their turf. Again, the weak criminal justice system is to blame for this sorry state of affairs.

Despite his flip-flopping, Lascañas’ story has a ring of truth. But without loud public indignation, this will be just a blip in the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte.