Calida recalls Duterte’s ‘lighthearted moment’ praising drug raid deaths

Solicitor General Jose Calida. JOAN BONDOC/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Solicitor General Jose Calida described as a lighthearted moment when President Rodrigo Duterte’s expressed satisfaction over the almost a hundred deaths in a single day during the government’s one-time big time drug raids a few months back.

During Tuesday’s oral argument, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno noted that there was a day when about 32 were killed in Bulacan in nine hours and a similar number were killed in Caloocan.

The Chief Justice said President Duterte was quoted in reports praising the operations as “a good result and it should happen everyday.”

“Is it a statement of preference,” the Chief Justice asked.

“The President maybe is in a joking mood. It was probably a lighthearted moment,” Calida said. /je