Palace: Slain ex-mayor’s fate to befall ‘narcopols’

Malacañang on Sunday warned officials on the government’s “narcolist” that they might suffer the same fate as a former Maguindanao mayor who was killed last week after allegedly resisting arrest.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said President Rodrigo Duterte would use any constitutional means, conventional or otherwise, to enforce the law and carry out his bloody war against illegal drugs.

“Regardless of the social and political status of persons
involved or engaged in the illegal drug industry, the same fate will necessarily befall them if they resist arrest and shoot
it out with the arresting officers,” Panelo said.

He made the remarks a few days after agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) shot the former Parang, Maguindanao mayor, Talib Abo Sr., and his younger brother, Parang Councilor Disumimba Abo, for allegedly resisting arrest.

On ‘narcolist’

The former mayor was tagged in the President’s so-called narcolist of public officials allegedly involved in illegal drugs.

Abo, who had denied being involved in illegal drugs, is the 19th local official killed since the Duterte administration began its war on drugs in 2016.

Without naming Abo in its statement, Malacañang justified the shooting of the former mayor, especially that he reportedly resisted arrest and endangered the lives of the PDEA agents.

Panelo assured the public that the President would fulfill his constitutional mandate to “serve and protect the people” until the end of his term.

“The President will employ any means, unconventional or not but constitutionally allowed, to enforce the law. The President shall fulfill his constitutional mandate until the end of his term,” he said.

Panelo added that the problem of illegal drugs “destroyed a generation of Filipinos and threatens the next one,” causing crimes to be committed and families becoming dysfunctional.

The Palace maintained, however, that the government was not behind the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in its bloody war against illegal drugs.

“The state has not initiated and will never initiate drug-related killings outside the ambit of the law,” Panelo said, adding that the government would pursue and imprison those “who kill without justifying and exempting circumstances.”

‘No sacred cows’

“The government will pursue to the ends of the earth those who kill without justifying and exempting circumstances as provided by law until they are put behind bars,” Panelo said.

“There will be no sacred cows in this administration. Those who disobey or violate the law will pay the price for their crimes or transgressions,” he said.