Recto: Tanauan mayor's killing part of 'spiral of violence'

MANILA, Philippines — The killing of a mayor who became controversial for parading drug suspects on his city's streets and was himself accused of having drug links shows that authorities in Batangas are unable to stem violence there, a senator from the province south of Manila said on Monday.

Sen. Ralph Recto, who is from Batangas province, condemened the killing of Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanuan City in front of shocked city hall employees and village leaders and said that the incident showed that a sniper is "on the loose" in Batangas.

"Tony Halili was the latest politician in the province felled by a marksman’s bullet," Recto said in a statement.

"The province is littered with bodies of victims of political assassinations and unsolved murders, and each unsolved killing emboldens the next, creating a spiral of violence, which authorities cannot seem to stop," said Recto, whose wife Vilma Santos-Recto, served as governor for nine years until 2016.

Recto was also a member of the House of Representatives for the province's 4th District from 1992 to 2001.

The senator said that the failure of authorities to solve killings strengthened the culture of violence and encouraged the silencing of opponents to settle disagreements.

A lone shot rang out and felled Halili during flag-raising rites at the city hall's parking lot on Monday, sending employees and village officials running for safety.

Videos posted on social media captured the chaos that ensued following the shot, with the mayor's bodyguards returning fire toward a small grassy hill beside the parking lot, where the gunman was assumed to have been perched.

In dramatic video, Halili was shown being hit by the shot and trying to take cover before he slumped on the pavement.

The mayor had been a controversial official after he ordered drug suspects to be paraded on his city's streets in what was dubbed as a "walk of shame." The suspects were wearing shirts or cardboard signs that read that they were drug suspects and should not be emulated.

This practice alarmed rights groups, but Human Rights Watch said on Monday that although it did not agree with Halili's methods he should not be deprived of rights and due process himself.

Halili has also been linked to illegal drugs, but he has denied this allegation and vowed to parade himself before his constitutents should the accusation be proven true.

Senators condemn assassination

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, president of the Liberal Party, said that the mayor's killing was a case of extrajudicial killing spawned by the government's war on drugs.

He said that the murder could be a case of "revenge killing" because victims knew who killed their family.

The senator, who belongs to the minority caucus in the Senate, stressed that killings are not the solution to the country's drug problem, adding that the use of illegal drugs is still rampant despite the crackdown.

Sen. Nancy Binay of the Senate majority also condemend the assassination, saying that the killings of ordinary people, politicians, priests and former government officials show a "disturbing pattern of lawlessness and indifference to the value of life."

"This senseless disregard for human life should stop. We urge the proper authorities to quickly bring the perpetrators to justice," she said in a statement.

Since launching its war on drugs two years ago, the Philippine government said that more than 4,200 people, most of whom are from the the country's urban poor, were killed in the crackdown.

Rights groups dispute this figure and cite estimates as high as 12,000, but the government is questioning their methods.