Duterte hit for ‘wrong messages’

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. FILE PHOTO

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, a potential contender for the presidency in 2016, is one of many politicians now under the radar of civil rights groups for sending the “wrong messages” about human rights, former Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chair Loretta Ann Rosales said here on Wednesday.

Rosales said while abusive soldiers or policemen had been blamed for past violations, especially during martial law, recent cases involved politicians.

“These are the guys with private armies, who encourage ‘jueteng’ (illegal gambling), who tolerate or commit irregularities and anomalous acts,” she said.

She said policemen and soldiers have been restrained and disciplined by reforms undertaken by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police across the years since the 1986 Edsa Revolution.

Local culprits

She said recent atrocities had been attributed to members of political clans in Mindanao and in Luzon provinces, like Abra, “so let’s zero in on questionable [local] executives and politicians.”

“This initiative intends to end impunity and restore democracy which is the spirit of the Edsa Revolution…to address extrajudicial killings that took place during martial law,” Rosales said on the sidelines of a human rights council meeting here.

Rosales stepped down as CHR chair on May 5 when her four-year term expired.

Earlier, Duterte said he had been provoked into considering a run for Malacañang by Rosales, a former Akbayan party-list representative, and by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, for their pursuit of unsolved vigilante killings in Davao City.

Rosales said the government had reviewed and investigated 206 cases of vigilante murders in Davao from 2005 to 2009. Results of the review showed “there was no direct evidence to say that he (Duterte) ordered or actually committed these crimes,” she said.

Duterte, however, is liable for tolerating the murders, she said.

Myth

She said politicians, like Duterte, became popular by perpetuating “the myth that the iron fist rule contributes to clean, peaceful government.”

“In fact, [politicians like Duterte] contribute to the weakening of the criminal justice system … when [they] give the wrong signal that it is OK to kill criminals,” she said.

Rosales said 19 of 206 unsolved Davao murders involved teenagers, who had criminal records for petty theft.

“Duterte has made noise all over the place [asserting that the death of criminals was acceptable] as long as his city is cleaned up for the innocent,” she said. “But what about the 19 children who were summarily executed?”

Former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, however, has been given a pass by civil rights groups, Rosales said.

She said while Lacson’s career as PNP chief was marked with the killing of members of the Kuratong Baleleng, a kidnap-for-ransom group, the former senator “has not been sending the wrong messages” in his pursuit of the presidency. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon