Palace vows fair, impartial probe of deaths

Ernesto Abella

Malacañang on Thursday promised a “fair and impartial” investigation of the deaths of 32 drug suspects in  near-simultaneous police raids across Bulacan province on Monday.

“There will be a fair and impartial investigation [of] the recent Bulacan raids,” presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said.

The suspects, he said, were killed in separate operations, not in a single strike, and they resisted arrest.

“Local authorities were met with violent resistance as evidenced by the recovery of firearms, grenades and live ammunition,” he said.

The deaths in Bulacan were followed by the deaths of 25 suspects in similar raids across Manila on Wednesday, marking the bloodiest period in the war on drugs since President Duterte launched the crackdown after taking office last year.

Mr. Duterte on Wednesday called the Bulacan killings “good” and called for more such operations to solve the country’s drug problems.

Call for outrage

But Vice President Leni Robredo called for public outrage after what seemed to be an intensification of the war on drugs.

Speaking to reporters in Naga City on Thursday, Robredo said the killings of drug suspects should not characterize the Filipinos, stressing that the Philippines had long renounced “impunity.”

Robredo bewailed the lack of due process in the campaign against drugs.

“The constitutional processes are no longer allowed to run their course to ensure that justice is done for all,” she said.

Akbayan Rep. Tomasito Villarin said Mr. Duterte’s remarks about the Bulacan killings were “callous and insensitive.”

“Lauding this crime only reflects the rejection of a person’s right to life, and our very own humanity as Filipinos,” Villarin said in a statement on Thursday.

More operations

But the deputy chief of the Philippine National Police said antidrug operations were going on in the regions.

“Maybe we don’t feel it in Metro Manila, but in all regions the police operations continue,” Deputy Director General Ramon Apolinario told reporters on Thursday.

“We expect more one time, big time operations, not only in Bulacan, because the drug problem is not simply concentrated there,” he said.

Director Oscar Albayalde, head of the National Capital Region Police Office, said the crackdown on drugs had been unrelenting.

“Maybe the efforts have just been highlighted because of what happened in Bulacan,” he said.

‘Death mentality’

Also on Thursday, retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz lamented the rising cases of extrajudicial killings in the country and deplored the growing “death mentality” of Filipinos, including the youth.

“Even among the youth, their perspective is that to kill a man is no problem. That is the infused value system that they see every day, that it’s OK,” Cruz said over Church-run Radio Veritas.

A former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Cruz blamed the death mentality of young Filipinos on the killings of suspected drug users and pushers in Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs.

“Whether we like it or not, this mentality is creeping in, especially in the minds of young people, and this is worrisome,” he said. —WITH REPORTS FROM VINCE F. NONATO, JULIE M. AURELIO AND JHESSET O. ENANO