Presidential candidates Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Jejomar Binay.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON
Vice President Jejomar Binay on Thursday hit out at rival candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, telling voters to think twice about electing someone with a history of involvement in extrajudicial killings.
“You like this person because of what he’s doing. But when the time comes that it’s your loved ones who get killed based on mere suspicion, that’s the time you will regret your choice,” Binay said.
“I hope we won’t get to that point where we will have regrets,” he said in Filipino.
Interviewed while campaigning in North Fairview Thursday, Binay dismissed Duterte’s promise of resolving crime “in three to six months” as “suntok sa buwan (an almost impossible feat).”
Right to life
“That would mean extrajudicial killings left and right, where mere suspicion will get someone killed. Minors, women, the elderly, whoever will be killed by mere suspicion,” Binay told reporters.
Binay, a former human rights lawyer, cited the importance of due process in exacting justice.
“You know, I’m a lawyer. The right to life is important,” he said.
“That’s why we have courts. The court will make the judgment, not what Duterte has been saying where mere suspicion [could get you killed]. That is unchristian, unlawful and a violation of human rights,” he said.
He said he had proof of extrajudicial killings attributed to the Davao death squad, where Duterte was earlier implicated. He said the Davao mayor had earlier admitted to killing 1,700 people.
Asked if he was attacking Duterte because the latter was beating him in the preelection surveys, Binay said surveys were not accurate.
Binay was equally harsh about two other rival candidates, Mar Roxas and Grace Poe. Only Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago escaped his tart comments.
Words on his opponents
In a radio interview Thursday, Binay was asked to describe his rivals briefly. He had only kind words about Santiago who is battling lung cancer.
He asked people to pray for Santiago’s recovery. “We missed her,” he said of Santiago’s failure to attend the second presidential debate in Cebu City last month.
Binay was particularly scathing about the apparent front-runner Grace Poe.
“She was ashamed of, rejected her being a Filipino because she took her oath happily to become an American,” he said of Poe.
Binay had some choice comments about the “phenomenal” comic book of Roxas which detailed his role during the Supertyphoon “Yolanda” devastation in Tacloban in 2013.
Crab mentality
The camp of Duterte Thursday denied that the tough-talking mayor had ever had anything to do with extrajudicial killings.
“Duterte has never been involved in extrajudicial killings. Davao had this sorry situation and image as a killing fields before he came. But he was able to stop and clean this up,” said Duterte’s spokesperson Peter Laviña, reacting to Binay’s attacks.
“Unfortunately, the top is always the target of crab mentality,” Laviña said.
The Duterte campaign also debunked Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s claim that the mayor would need to declare martial law if he wants to solve criminality within six months.
“There is no need for Duterte to declare martial law. He needs only to enforce the law, the enforcement agencies to do their jobs, the judicial and penal system to work and the community to cooperate,” Lavina said.
“Getting rid of [illegal] drugs, crime and corruption will require everyone’s participation as active citizens with a stake in nation-building. Duterte’s political will is the leading catalyst in this collective societal task,” he said.
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