Binay hits Duterte for supporting extrajudicial killings

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Jejomar Binay. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

Vice President Jejomar Binay hit back at Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte for supporting extrajudicial killings as his platform of governance to stamp out criminality.

In an interview on radio station Energy FM on Thursday, Binay said as a human rights lawyer he could not accept Duterte’s admission of his links to the notorious Davao Death Squad, a hitman group in Davao City which targets drug pushers and criminals.

“Abogado ako, I am a human rights lawyer. Iyong pagpatay, iyong extra-judicial killing, mali iyon,” Binay said.

“Extrajudicial killing batay pa sa suspicion lang. Kapag napagtsismisan ka, iyong papatay sa iyo na taong gubyerno ay naniniwala,papatayin ka na agad. Mali naman iyon. Wala na tayong proseso roon,” he added.

(I’m a lawyer, I am a human rights lawyer. Killing, extrajudicial killing, is wrong.

Extrajudicial killing especially based on mere suspicion. When rumors are spread about you and the people in government believe [the rumors], you will be killed right away. That’s wrong, there is no due process there.)

Binay took no exception to the deaths of children in the hands of the alleged Davao Death Squad.

Binay cited the siblings Richard Alia, 18, Christopher Alia, 17, and Bobby Alia,14, who were reportedly knifed to death by the Davao Death Squad.

“Bale ba naman ang pinapatay diyan, gruesome ha, if you can only see a picture noong isang batang 14 years old. Pinagsasaksak iyon,” Binay said.

(The kind of killing they do, it’s gruesome, if you could only see a picture of one 14-year-old child. He was stabbed repeatedly.)

Binay also hit Duterte over his promise to end criminality within six months of his administration through extrajudicial means.

“Iyong sinasabi ng isang kandidato na six months, kahit ilang taon pa ho iyon hindi po maso-solve ‘yon [through extrajudicial killing],” Binay said.

(What one candidate was saying about six months, no matter how many months that is, it won’t be solved [through extrajudicial killing].)

Duterte had previously claimed he and Binay were the most qualified to be president.

While he was hailed for his anti-crime crusade, Duterte had been linked to the Davao Death Squad, an alleged gang of assassins purportedly responsible for the deaths of 1,000 suspected criminals in the city since Duterte became mayor in 1988.

“They say I am the death squad? True, that is true,” Duterte once said in a television interview admitting his ties to the alleged group.

READ: Duterte confirms ‘ties’ with Davao Death Squad 

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has expressed concern about Duterte’s support of extrajudicial killings amid a rise in summary executions of suspected criminals in the city.

The Human Rights Watch in a commentary even called Duterte the “Philippines’ Death Squad Mayor.”

“The Philippine government should take a zero-tolerance approach to any public official who publicly endorses extrajudicial killings as an acceptable means of crime control,” Phelim Kine, HRW deputy Asia director, said in a statement last year. CDG

READ: Duterte to rights group: You are all hypocrites

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