MANILA, Philippines — “Shit happens” when the President and public officials of a country “are more gangsters than law enforcers,” opposition Senator Leila de Lima said Friday.
She said this after her colleague Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa remarked that “shit happens” during police’s anti-drug operations. The remark was in relation to the killing of a three-year-old girl during a police buy-bust operation in Rizal province.
READ: Shit happens, Bato says after a child got killed in drug bust
“Shit does happen, but it happens more often because we have a President and public officials who are more gangsters than law enforcers,” De Lima said in a dispatch from Camp Crame where she is currently detained.
She noted how President Rodrigo Duterte has “ordered” the murder of the poor “whether or not they use drugs,” pointing out that the slain three-year-old Myka Ulpina could not have been using drugs when she was shot by the police.
But reports had it that the girl was used as a human shield by her father during a shootout following a drug sting operation on Saturday in Rodriguez, Rizal.
She added that Dela Rosa “might as well introduce legislation lowering the age of criminal responsibility to ‘at birth’ because, anyway, ‘shit happens.’”
The senator also took a swipe at Dela Rosa’s remark that jueteng is a “lesser evil” compared to illegal drug trade. He was defending President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement that he would let jueteng operations continue for now.
READ: Duterte prefers ‘jueteng,’ says it’s lesser evil compared to drugs
De Lima said that Dela Rosa’s and Duterte’s reason in “going easy” on the numbers racket because it is a crime that “feeds people” is usually used by public officials to “justify their acceptance of a monthly payola from jueteng lords.”
She reminded Dela Rosa and Duterte that as public officials, “enforcing the law is not even a choice.”
“It is a duty and a mandate. Duterte and Dela Rosa only have two choices. Enforce the law against jueteng or legalize jueteng altogether,” the senator said.