MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday lamented how killings in the country have become normalized after the mayor of Los Baños in Laguna was gunned down by unidentified men last week.
Police reports said the 66-year-old Cesar Perez was shot twice in the head around 8:45 p.m. of December 4, as he was walking back to the municipal hall of Barangay Timugan.
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Perez's death brings him to the list of at least a dozen local chief executives killed under the Duterte administration, per figures released by the interior department in 2019.
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He was among the 46 named by President Rodrigo Duterte as among local politicians supposedly involved in anti-illegal drug trade and in 2017, was stripped of powers over the city's police over the issue.
In her weekly radio show, Robredo said killings that go unresolved only show government's failure to hold to account the perpetrators and bring justice for families of the bereaved.
"Mahirap na ganito kasi 'pag nangyayari 'yung ganito na walang napananagot, kasalanan ng pamahalaan na hindi niya kayang protektahan 'yung kanyang mamamayan," she said over DZXL.
(This is difficult because when things like these happen and nobody is hold accountable, it becomes government's fault because it cannot protect its people.)
The vice president warned too that such incidents that go unpunished only strengthen the resolve of others to commit more crimes
"Parang napaka-normal na lang na mabalitaan natin na may mayor, judge, abogado o media man na pinatay," Robredo said. "Bakit natin hinahayaan na ganoon? Sino ba 'yung may responsibility na hanapin 'yung perpetrators?"
(It seems as if it is only normal that we hear mayors, judges, lawyers or even media men killed. Why are we allowing this to continue and whose responsibility is it to run after those behind it?)
The PNP has reported that it is still searching for leads as to who shot Perez, who had served as well as vice governor of Laguna before.
Coincidentally, the Philippines this year placed as among the top 50 safest countries in the world, per findings by US-based analytics group Gallup Inc.
The results, which showed the country scoring 84 in its 2020 Global Law and Order Index and placing it among nations such as Australia, New Zealand and Poland, had surprised no less than Duterte who banked on an anti-criminality platform in his 2016 bid for the presidency.
RELATED: Duterte 'surprised' at poll results that Philippines is among world's safest countries
Gallup Inc's placing of Manila in the top 50 had since met dispute here at home, as many pointed out that human rights violations, particularly on the President's bloody drug war, continue.