Killings of ‘suspects’

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- Catholic Church leaders of this Banana Republic have expressed alarm at a sharp rise in police killings of suspected criminals since the election of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte who vowed a bloody war on crime.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines also denounced vigilantism and offering of bounties for criminals, following the May 9 election of Duterte who ran on an anti-crime campaign.

"We are disturbed by an increasing number of reports that suspected drug-peddlers, pushers and others have been shot, supposedly because they resist arrest," said a statement by Archbishop Socrates Villegas, the head of the conference.

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He was responding to national police figures showing 29 drug suspects were shot dead between May 9 and June 15 -- compared to 39 killed in the previous four months of this year.

The most recent figure does not include eight drug suspects shot dead by police last week in different parts of the country. "It is equally disturbing that vigilantism seems to be on the rise," the statement said, citing cases where bodies have been found with signs labeling them as criminals.

The bishops also condemned the practice of at least one city mayor of offering large payments to policemen who kill drug suspects. "It is never morally permissible to receive reward money to kill another," the statement added.

Their condemnation flies in the face of Duterte's call to police and even civilians to kill drug criminals. Duterte has previously been linked to vigilante death squads who killed about 1,000 people when he was longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao.

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He has vowed to kill tens of thousands of criminals after he takes office on June 30. The president-elect has often attacked the Catholic Church, which counts over 80 percent of Filipinos as followers and was instrumental in the toppling of the late President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Duterte has labeled Pope Francis as "a son of a whore" and branded the church a hypocritical institution.

Although he has not yet taken office, a police spokesman said Duterte's remarks were a possible "motivation" for law-enforcers to crack down on illegal drugs, and this has spawned a lot of killings of alleged illegal drug pushers.

Considering the backlash on these killings, the buck, at this time, still ends with President Aquino since Duterte has not yet assumed office. Aquino could have initiated a focused anti-illegal drug campaign even during the first year of his term. With police Director General Marquez, he could have cracked the whip on rogue cops suspected of being part of the illegal drugs mafia and behind the recent killings or “rubouts” of henchmen.

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These “hoodlums in uniform” are believed to be “silencing” illegal drug pushers they are in cahoots with by killing them in anticipation of a no-nonsense drive against the drug menace by the incoming administration.

News reports say around 45 persons have been slain since Duterte won the May 9 presidential election. That is a bloody record of more than one kill per day.

This has given rise to speculation that some of the drug peddlers killed were “assets” silenced by their police handlers who are cleaning up in anticipation of coming crackdown on complicit officers.

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If the Aquino administration was a lameduck in the war against drugs, reports say, it is because its tentacles have reached Malacanang and Camp Crame where three police generals were accused by Duterte of being in the illegal trade. 

This, coupled with allegations that even some of those in the judicial system like prosecutors and judges are part of the drug mafia. They are accused of rigging charges or rulings to make drug pushers free for hefty sums of money.

Somehow, the Duterte government is perceived to have the will to stop this trade.

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As pointed out by Mayor Bon Alejandrino of Arayat, Pampanga during a media forum in Clark Freeport last week, Duterte could actually stop the drug menace in three months, not six months after he assumed office.

The no-nonsense mayor, a former “supremo” of the outlawed HukbongMapagpalayang Bayan (HMB), has a forceful administrative style similar to Duterte’s.

He is a descendant of Gen. Jose Alejandrino, a renowned revolutionary in the Spanish era who became the first military governor of Pampanga at the turn of the century and later became senator.

As mayor, Alejandrino had issued an ultimatum to all 30 barangay chairmen in his town to lick the illegal drugs problem in their areas by July 30 – or resign. He said he expects 100-percent compliance.

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When Alejandrino first assumed office in 2013, illegal drugs were being sold “like candies” throughout Arayat. The problem was significantly reduced, the mayor said, and will be wiped out by July 30.

Alejandrino said Duterte as president could also issue a three-month deadline to all barangay chairs throughout the country with a similar challenge for them to resign should they fail.

The former HMB boss is credited for having brought peace and order, as well as discipline, to his town at the foot of 1,026-meter-high Mt. Arayat known for decades as a hotbed of political dissent and, later, killings.

The mayor admitted that there have been slayings in Arayat, but victims were known criminals and not innocent civilians. He denied accusations he was behind some of the killings.

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The war against illegal drugs is a welcome move, but as concerned constituents and human rights advocates say, due process should be the rule. New rules should be outlined clearly, well-thought out action plan presented, and human rights respected.

The summary execution of suspected shabu peddlers goes on while major manufacturers and suppliers of prohibited drugs are perceived to be left untouched or, if caught, given the benefit of due process that is denied their runners.

The “unequal application of rules, procedures and penalties” could be addressed by the new administration otherwise this Banana Republic would also be tagged Wild, Wild West of the Far East.