“Bilang na ang araw mo.”
Vice President Jejomar Binay on Friday warned Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte that his days were numbered and advised him that he should be the one kneeling—before the rule of law.
“Mister Duterte, ang sabi mo maghanda na akong lumuhod at magdasal. Alam mo, mister Berdugong mamamatay ng bata at pumapatay ng mga mahihirap, kung merong dapat lumuhod at magdasal, ito ay walang iba kung hindi ikaw,” Binay said.
“Bilang na ang araw mo. The law will soon catch up with you,” he added.
Binay issued the comment after his newfound rival Duterte advised him to kneel down, pray, and cry with sincerity with the rest of his family in begging forgiveness over the corruption allegations hurled against them.
READ: Poll front-runner Duterte advises Binay: Kneel down and pray
“Lumuhod ka sa Diyos. Mag-iyak ka ng sinsero,” Duterte had advised Binay.
“Like kay Binay, bilyon-bilyon yun. Yung anak niya kailangan magluhod din sa tabi niya at yung asawa (niya),” Duterte added.
This was Binay’s latest attack on Duterte, who the Vice President wanted probed over his purported role in the spate of summary killings of criminals and drug pushers in Davao City by alleged vigilante group Davao Death Squad.
READ: Binay to conduct probe on Davao Death Squad if elected president
The standard-bearer of United Nationalist Alliance noted that Duterte had admitted his ties to the Davao Death Squad, and that this may be considered “admission against interest” before the court.
“Ilang beses kang umamin—at ipinagyayabang mo pa—na ikaw ay pumatay ng libu-libo na pinaghinalaan mo lamang na sangkot sa krimen. This is called admission against interest and you should know this being a former fiscal and a lawyer,” Binay said.
“Ikaw mismo ang umamin na bahagi ka at pasimuno ng Davao Death Squad. Ang Davao Death Squad ay sangkot sa extra-judicial killings na kinondena ng Amnesty International, United Nations at iba pang human rights organizations. Dapat kang managot sa batas at sa Diyos,” he added.
“Huwag mo akong babantaan. Hindi ako natatakot sa iyo.”
Binay said Duterte should be the one to kneel because he should repent for his plan to eliminate the poor by summarily killing criminals.
He said the mayor bragged about killing criminals, but he had not executed even one big drug pusher in Davao City.
“Ikaw ang dapat matakot sa Diyos at sa batas ng ating bansa. Sa halip na tulungan ang mga mahihirap, pinapatay mo ang mga mahihirap dahil sa suspetsa lamang. Ni wala kang pinapatay na mayaman, ni wala kang pinapatay na big-time pusher o smuggler sa iyong lungsod,” Binay said.
The Vice President said the solution to criminality was to alleviate poverty, not instill fear and kill suspected criminals.
“Hindi karahasan ang sagot sa kahirapan ng bansa. Hindi ang pagpatay sa mga mahihirap at mga bata ang solusyon,” Binay said.
He had said he wanted the mayor investigated and put behind bars after the latter’s camp said the Vice President was the “big fish” to be sent to jail under a Duterte presidency.
Binay had been indicted by the Ombudsman for graft, malversation and falsification of public documents with his son dismissed Makati Mayor Junjun over the alleged overpricing of the city hall parking building.
The younger Binay, meanwhile, had been charged in the Sandiganbayan for graft and falsification.
The Vice President is immune from suit until the end of his term in office.
Binay had also been the subject of a year-long Senate investigation over allegations of millions of kickbacks from overpriced infrastructure deals in Makati.
“Binay would in all likelihood be the first big fish to be sent to jail with the preponderance of evidence of corruption against him during his stint as Makati mayor for more than 20 years,” Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, president of Duterte’s political party PDP-Laban, said in a statement.
READ: It’s jail for Binay, says Duterte camp
The two presidential hopefuls had been trading barbs, with Binay calling Duterte “berdugo of the poor” and the mayor calling the Vice President “berdugo ng pera ng bayan.”
The Vice President launched his fiercest attacks against the mayor after the latter led the latest Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia surveys.
READ: Binay tells Duterte: No such thing as ‘berdugo ng pera’
Binay once praised Duterte as a good candidate for president for having years of experience as local government chief executive in Davao City.
Binay’s admiration for Duterte, however, soon turned into vilification as he minced no words in urging the public not to vote for the mayor, who he said was a “murderer” and a “butcher.”
READ: Binay twits Duterte: Your killing of the poor isn’t debatable
While he is hailed for his anticrime crusade, Duterte has been linked to an alleged gang of assassins purportedly responsible for the deaths of 1,000 suspected criminals in Davao City since he became mayor in 1988.
“They say I am the death squad? True, that is true,” Duterte once said in a television interview, admitting his ties to the alleged group.
READ: Duterte confirms ‘ties’ with Davao Death Squad
The New York-based Human Rights Watch has expressed concern for Duterte’s backing of extrajudicial killings.
The Human Rights Watch in a commentary even called Duterte the “Philippines’ Death Squad Mayor.”
READ: Duterte to rights group: You are all hypocrites
“The Philippine government should take a zero-tolerance approach to any public official who publicly endorses extrajudicial killings as an acceptable means of crime control,” Phelim Kine, HRW deputy Asia director, said in a statement last year.
When rights group Amnesty International in December 2015 issued a statement condemning Duterte’s record of human rights violations, he said the group understated his record and bragged that he had killed 1,700 people, not 700 people. RC
READ: Amnesty Int’l raises red flags on Duterte