“Ginagago tayo nitong mga pulis, nitong spokesman na ito. Kala ba nila naniniwala ang taumbayan?”
This was the reaction of Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s claim that there was zero extrajudicial killing under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
The senator also downplayed PNP’s claims as “Goebbels propaganda.”
“Alam mo, naalala ko yung propagandist ni Hitler noong second world war na si Goebbels, ang sabi niya, minsan ka lang magsabi ng kasinungalingan, kasinungalingan pa rin iyan, ngunit kung uulitin mo nang 1,000 times ang isang kasinungalingan, baka maniwala na ang taumbayan,” the senator said in an interview with DZBB on Sunday.
Joseph Goebbels is Nazi Germany’s chief propagandist, who was once quoted as having said that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Drilon said that the PNP and other propagandists “would keep spreading misinformation and lies in the hope that people would eventually accept them as facts.”
But he believes that the people would not fall into such lies.
“Iyan po ay kasinungalingan at niloloko po ang taumbayan. Ginagago ang taumbayan, to put it bluntly,” he said.
“Hayaan mo na taumbayan. Uulitin ko lang, hindi po maniniwala ang taumbayan sa kasinungalingan ng mga propagandist na nilalathala sa ere,” Drilon added.
He noted the death of two minors – Kian delos Santos and Carl Arnaiz – as a clear case of extrajudicial killings.
The opposition senator pointed out that it was clear from the statements of the PNP and the Department of Justice in various hearings in the Senate that there were approximately 4,000 deaths connected to the government’s anti-illegal drug operations.
Consequently, Drilon also vowed to scrutinize the budget of the PNP particularly the P900 million that has been allocated for the agency’s “Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded” in 2018.
“Kung hindi po nila maipapaliwanag kung para saaan ito ay tungkulin ng senado na tanggalin itong allocation na ito for next year’s budget,” Drilon said.