In defending drug war, Duterte cites Maggie dela Riva rape case
President Duterte JOAN BONDOC
In defending his war on drugs, President Duterte said drug users now rape just about anyone, even young children, unlike in the past when rapists chose beautiful women “worth going to jail and worth dying for.”
Mr. Duterte, in a speech in Malacañang on Tuesday, once more discussed the ill effects of illegal drugs, as well as his misgivings about the effectivity of community-based rehabilitation programs.
His experience showed that majority of shabu users would go back to their habit, which is a problem for the country, he said.
He then brought up the difference between rapists now and in the past.
“And you know what? May I be forgiven by Maggie dela Riva. During our time, those who were raped were the beautiful ones,” he said.
“Those who were raped were really beautiful, worth going to jail and worth dying for. That’s why they were electrocuted. That was the payment,” he added.
During these modern times, rapists do not even spare one-month-old children, he said.
Dela Riva was a young actress in 1967 when four men belonging to elite families abducted and took her to a hotel where they violated her.
She brought a case against the four men – Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda, Edgardo Aquino, and Rogelio Canal— who were tried and sentenced to death.
Jose, Pineda and Aquino were sent to the electric chair, while Canal died of a drug overdose before he could be executed./ac
