President Rodrigo Duterte MALACAÑANG PHOTO
DAVAO CITY—President Duterte on Thursday took a swipe at critics of his martial law proclamation in Mindanao, saying he had a job to do and he could go to jail if he failed.
During his visit to troops in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon province, Mr. Duterte said he would throw his full support behind security forces implementing his order as long as they did not commit abuses.
“We are forced by circumstances. I have a mandate to do. Otherwise I could go to jail,” Mr. Duterte told the troops of the Army’s 403rd Infantry Brigade.
“I want it ended as soon as possible but I must be assured also that the Filipino people and the nation are safe,” he said.
He welcomed the Supreme Court ruling supporting his martial law declaration. “The majority of the justices sustained me … We won an overwhelming mandate.”
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Thursday urged the President to notify Congress if he would extend his martial law proclamation before its July 22 expiration so that the legislative body could tackle it on July 24 when it convenes in a joint session for his second State of the Nation Address.
Drilon rejected Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo’s statement that Mr. Duterte could just issue a new 60-day martial law proclamation if Congress would not extend it.
“That is a view that I believe is not supported by the reading of the Constitution and by the circumstances under which a proclamation or extension will be decided,” he said.
“Beyond 60 days, it is now the joint responsibility of the President and Congress to determine whether martial law will be extended,” Drilon told reporters.
Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison on Wednesday said Mr. Duterte’s martial law would be worse than the strongman rule of Ferdinand Marcos .
“A Marcos-type fascist martial rule situation is now existing and rapidly developing in the Philippines,” Sison said in an online interview from his base in Utrecht, the Netherlands. —WITH REPORTS FROM CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO IN MANILA AND DELFIN T. MALLARI JR. IN QUEZON