MANILA - Killings by the police and vigilantes in the Philippines' war on drugs have soared to nearly 1,800 in the seven weeks since President Rodrigo Duterte was sworn into office, the nation's top police official told a Senate hearing on Monday. Under Mr. Duterte, who campaigned on a pledge to rid the country of drug dealers, 712 suspects have been killed in police operations, National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa said. Vigilante killings have totaled 1,067 during the same period, he said, although it was unclear how many were directly related to the illegal drug trade. [continues 964 words]
ALL FILIPINOS, whether public officials or ordinary citizens, have the right to due process. It is a human right guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution that President Duterte swore to uphold and defend. It is sorely disappointing to see the President disregard this constitutional right as he voices no objection to the killing of suspected drug pushers by the police or by vigilantes, and accuses police officers, local executives, judges and other officials of being drug lords or their protectors without the benefit of a thorough, completed criminal investigation. Without presenting solid evidence to back up his public allegations, President Duterte, the most powerful public official of our land, has embarked on a chilling, sickening name-and-shame campaign that is in effect an unjust, unlawful and unconstitutional trial by publicity. [continues 666 words]
THE Senate opens today an inquiry into the ongoing anti-drugs campaign of the Duterte administration which has already resulted in hundreds of deaths, thousands of arrests, and tens of thousands of surrenders of both pushers and users. Over 800 had already been killed by the middle of last month and the figure continues to grow, raising fears of human rights violations. In the last few days, there have been considerable fireworks around the person of Sen. Leila de Lima, whose Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights is to conduct the inquiry. President Duterte has accused her of having an affair with her driver who allegedly collected drug money for her inside the New Bilibid Prison. Last Friday, she called most of the charges "lies, distortions, and exaggerations," but did admit some of it were true "may kaunting totoo." [continues 337 words]
Resents Criticisms of His Antidrug War PRESIDENT Duterte yesterday threatened to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations as he launched another profanity-laced tirade against the world body for criticizing his ruthless war on drugs. More than 1,500 people have been killed since Mr. Duterte took office on June 30 and immediately launched a take-noprisoners crackdown on illegal drugs, drawing fierce criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups. A lawyer notorious for an acid tongue, Mr. Duterte has repeatedly told the United Nations not to interfere, calling the world body "stupid" for its criticisms. [continues 964 words]
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promise to stop crime and corruption in six months must be pressuring the police into killing X-number of suspects by his 50th day in office, his 100th, and so forth, in a bloody race to meet the quotas by deadline time. The Commander's shoot-to-kill order (if the suspect fights back, kuno) has seen many police officers committing their first murder, executing suspects whose guilt has not been established and who in some instances were begging for their lives. [continues 588 words]
Malacanang yesterday criticized as "baseless and reckless" a United Nations statement that President Duterte's bloody war on drugs amounted to a crime under international law. Duterte's chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo told AFP the administration was not behind the extrajudicial killings targeting alleged criminal suspects, challenging UN human rights experts to visit the Philippines and investigate. Two UN rights experts said Thursday that Duterte's directives calling on law enforcers and the public to kill suspected drug traffickers "amount to incitement to violence and killing, a crime under international law." [continues 341 words]
They are also right in calling for divine intervention in the lives of addicts so they may find strength in shaking off their dependency on drugs. No doubt prayer works, but there is no secret formula that could bring about the change everybody wants to see the easy way the elimination of the drug menace in the country. Such major surgery involves searing pain. THE time to get involved in the affairs of this country is now, and the evangelicals are on the right track in coming up with a pastoral letter that supports the campaign against the drug menace while condemning the unwarranted killings of addicts and pushers. [continues 359 words]
THE WAR of words between President Duterte and the United Nations escalated on Thursday, with a UN envoy warning that "state actors" could be held responsible over hundreds of killings in the government's controversial crackdown on illegal drugs. Challenged by presidential chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo to come over and see for herself the real situation, UN special rapporteur on summary executions Agnes Callamard tweeted on Friday: "Invitation to investigate welcomed. Ready to 'see for myself.'" In a statement, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said that the "seeming incomprehension by local and international observers" was "more alarming than the pandemic use and trade of illegal drugs in the Philippines." [continues 762 words]
The person accused of wrongdoing is a senator, and it is his duty, President Duterte said, to tell the truth to the nation. On Wednesday he hurled serious accusations against Sen. Leila de Lima, saying she had an affair with her married driver who collected drug payola from convicts at the New Bilibid Prison. While the President said he was not sure if the drug money was forwarded to De Lima when she was the secretary of justice, he added that this seemed to be the case. The story about the driver is not new. As early as 2014, jueteng whistleblower Sandra Cam had alleged that the driver, identified as Ronnie Palisoc Dayan, had been made an employee of the Department of Justice and was acting as an influence peddler in the DOJ and its attached agencies. [continues 239 words]
IT'S easy to dismiss the search for justice by the mother of suspected drug lord Alvaro "Barok" Alvaro for her other son Medz, who was shot dead by policemen in a buy-bust operation in Danao City last Aug. 11. Also killed in that operation was Medz's alleged cohort, Ronnie Castro. For believers in the method used by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte in its campaign against the illegal drugs trade, relatives of Medz and Castro have lost their right to question the manner of their death because of their supposed involvement in criminal acts. But Emma Alvaro has as much a right to seek an investigation of the incident as relatives of victims of vehicular accidents. [continues 273 words]
MANILA - Even amid the slaughter of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, the killings of Renato and Jaypee Bertes stand out. The Bertes men, father and son, shared a tiny, concrete room with six other people in a metropolitan Manila slum, working odd jobs when they could find them. Both smoked shabu, a cheap form of methamphetamine that has become a scourge in the Philippines. Sometimes Jaypee Bertes sold it in small amounts, relatives said. So it was unsurprising when the police raided their room last month. [continues 1297 words]
(The following are excerpts from the "Position Paper on Extra-Judicial Killings As Means in the 'War on Drugs'" by the Center for Governance, Leadership and Development of the Department of Political Science of the University of San Carlos) While the campaign against illegal drugs is a fight we all share, the relentless killings of persons allegedly linked to the illegal drug trade has raised an important question that every Filipino, regardless of social status, education, political beliefs, or religious affiliation, ought to confront: Are we doing this right? [continues 744 words]
The United Nations yesterday urged the Philippine government to put an end to the current wave of extrajudicial killings in the context of an intensified campaign against crime and the drug menace. Two UN human rights experts said "allegations of drug trafficking offenses should be judged in a court of law, not by gunmen on the streets." The Philippine National Police reported yesterday that over 1,600 drug suspects have been killed since Duterte assumed power, with 665 attributed to PNP members and the rest to vigilantes. [continues 410 words]
As of yesterday, Sen. Leila de Lima didn't look "destroyed," although she was clearly distressed and admitted feeling scared and concerned for herself and those close to her. Lamenting the "abuse" and "misuse" of executive power, De Lima announced that her committee would proceed with its probe on Monday into the continuing killing spree. And if the administration is correct in its suspicions, no one is backing out either from efforts to bring the killings before the United Nations a possibility that seems to make the President fly into a fit of rage. [continues 798 words]
The police service celebrated its 115th anniversary the other day as the Senate prepared to launch an inquiry into the spate of killings of drug suspects since President Duterte assumed power. The official toll, according to Philippine National Police officials, was 1,564 as of yesterday, with 899 attributed not to PNP members but to vigilantes. Echoing the President, PNP officials have defended the mass killings, trotting out statistics to show that the crime rate has gone down. The homicide rate, of course, has soared and is sure to be the highest in this part of the world. Whether the victim was a drug dealer or law-abiding civilian, each killing must be probed and the perpetrator brought to justice. [continues 234 words]
WE, THE Missionary Benedictine Sisters of the Manila Priory, express our grave concern about the culture of death creeping into our society and the rampant and open violations of human rights linked to the Duterte administration's war on illegal drugs. At the outset, we state our condemnation of the drug trade that has not been properly addressed due to corruption, indifference and lack of political will. Powerful drug syndicates have succeeded in penetrating all levels of our society through bribery of corrupt public officials and law enforcers. This in turn has resulted in the corruption of our youth, the proliferation of heinous crimes, and the deterioration of the moral fabric of our society. [continues 389 words]
IF JOSE Rizal were alive today, he would probably be found dead on a Manila street with a crude cardboard sign identifying him as a drug user. Rizal, after all, admitted taking hashish when he was 18 years old. But someone should explain to the trigger-happy police or vigilantes that in Rizal's time, hashish, which we know today as marijuana, "Mary Jane," or "jutes," was not what it is now: a prohibited drug. It was considered medicine and was dispensed freely from a drugstore. [continues 902 words]
"Rise, above principle and do what's right." - Walter Heller AS the famous Roman orator Cicero had written, "laws are silent in time of war," and Duterte's war against drug trafficking and its lethal effects on humans is total war. The fight against drugs has become relentless, uncompromising, and nonnegotiable. It is fatal and it affects all classes and all ages which call for a united and nationwide effort and urgency. For these reasons, President Rodrigo "Digong" Roa Duterte should be given the leverage and space to pursue his crusade against drugs, corruption, and criminality unhampered by bureaucratic niceties and legalistic obstacles. [continues 378 words]
President Duterte scored the United Nations yesterday for hitting his aggressive anti-drug campaign, which he said has so far claimed the lives of 1,000 drug addicts and pushers. He complained that the UN is zeroing in on his administration's drug campaign when it was quiet on mass killings in other countries. "While I really do not know who's going to come here for that, I am going to whack him in the head," Duterte said at the anniversary of the Philippine National Police at Camp Crame. [continues 431 words]
We want to know what the young are thinking about. What are their thoughts on current issues? We welcome contributions from the twentysomething and below.- Ed. HUNDREDS HAVE died and thousands have voluntarily surrendered to authorities in the course of President Duterte's war on drugs. And though his violent and urgent campaign has done much to bring the issue to the national conversation, it also reveals how ill-equipped our legal infrastructure is in dealing with the victims of this war. The infrastructure required for the rehabilitation of drug users is lacking, and the way our law treats drug offenders is unfair and dehumanizing. [continues 845 words]
PROTESTS are growing in the Philippines over President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal campaign against the drug trade. Estimates of the numbers killed by police and vigilantes since Mr Duterte emerged as president-elect after the May 9 election vary between 650 and 1000. The bloodied bodies of alleged drug dealers and users have been left on streets and in gutters, often with cardboard placards proclaiming their involvement in the drug trade. Rights groups have condemned the killings and there have been protests recently at several schools and towns. [continues 130 words]
This administration will be remembered for institutionalizing mass killings as the ultimate crime-fighting tool. Public acquiescence to the mass killings is among the most astonishing elements in this vicious war on drugs. President Duterte, the architect of the crime-fighting strategy, may be glad to know that these days, when people are exasperated with criminality and even corruption and other forms of abuse in government, they ask why the crooks are still alive. "There oughta be a law" has been replaced with "they oughta be shot" - fatally, if possible. [continues 825 words]
Unstopped, the silencing of surrendered pusher-addicts could worsen to vendetta against anti-narcotics operatives. Vigilante killers are riding on, thus smearing Rody Duterte's war on drugs. They began striking, seemingly random, days after his May presidential win and worsened to almost daily after his June inaugural. The victims mostly were street pushers or addicted petty criminals from the slums. Duterte theorized a motive even then. Narco-financiers, including politicos and cops, were silencing their own street pushers in anticipation of his crackdown. Very plausible, for the narco-trade has infested high office and society. The past administration not only had let the problem fester; the ruling party notoriously even had as treasurers a sequence of drug lords from Southern Tagalog. [continues 590 words]
THE public is wondering how our government will respond or react to the statement issued on Friday, August 12, by the United States embassy in Manila, in which it expressed a number of concerns about certain statements made by President Duterte and the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings in the prosecution of the administration's war on drugs. Before saying anything, our government must carefully take note that it is an embassy statement, not a statement of the US Department of State, which would make it an entirely different thing. [continues 429 words]
Anti-illegal drug operations will be intensified in high-end clubs located at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig City following the arrest of three alleged drug traffickers last Saturday in Taguig and Pasig, the Southern Police District said. Owners of upscale bars and nightclubs have been cooperative in the campaign against illegal activities, National Capital Regional Police Office ( NCRPO) director Chief Supt. Oscar Albayalde said yesterday. Albayalde said owners of upscale bars and nightclubs are willing to sign a memorandum of agreement with the Philippine National Police ( PNP) allowing police operatives to conduct surveillance in their establishments. [continues 133 words]
STORIES about shenanigans at the Cebu City Jail have been doing the rounds for years. Because the jail is being run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), tackling the complaints related to these "stories" has been dependent not on the local government officials but on a national government agency. For years, BJMP 7 officials tended to look the other way allowing those "stories" to persist. The raid conducted early Saturday, done in full force by various law enforcement units, was thus a welcome development. It was called, like in previous raids, "Operation Greyhound" but it was an operation like no other before it in intensity and scope. No wonder it also netted the biggest catch in years. [continues 262 words]
FORMER Cebu City Jail warden Johnson Calub and 28 senior jail guards will not be reporting to work today. Calub might even face an administrative case if there's proof he was "remiss in his duty." Meanwhile, a team of investigators from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology 7 Regional Investigation and Prosecution Division will subject the jail officers to an inquiry if there is enough basis to include them. Hold on. Is this related to the discovery of P4,653,400 in cash, illegal drugs and appliances inside the facility? So what's with the "if he was 'remiss in his duty'" and "if there is enough basis to include them?" [continues 411 words]
CHIEF Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Monday, August 15, that the Duterte administration is not tolerating the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug personalities and stressed that it was the drug suspects who are "killing each other." "As far as we are concerned, the killings are being made by drug pushers themselves, killing each other," Panelo told reporters. Panelo's statement came after the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) had withdrawn its support on President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, saying it has "clearly become anti-people and anti-democratic." [continues 199 words]
OFTENTIMES, debates do not end in resolutions nor do the arguments meet squarely. The problem lies not in the lack of logic but on the different paradigms the reasoning proceeds from. Understanding the war on drugs require a proper paradigm, the paradigm of war. Over the years, decades even, the drug situation has worsened. Drug addicts took marijuana and cough syrups. They walked in the streets and their profile as addicts are unmistakable: long hair, tattered pants, skinny, and untidy. Overtime the addicts turn to synthetic drugs, most famous of which is "shabu." So too the profile of an addict: it has gone a massive transformation. For the untrained eye an addict maybe in your office without being noticed. They may even wear "barong" or coat and tie. [continues 623 words]
We can rant all day about how dirty and bloody the current war on drugs has become, but we cannot deny the fact that only President Rodrigo Duterte has shown utmost resolve and political will to do battle with drug syndicates. The illegal drug trade is just one of the tentacles of the underworld. According to law enforcement experts, revenues accrued from drug trafficking fund the criminal colony that is illegal gambling, human trafficking, white slavery, gunrunning, cybercrime and terrorism, not to mention sustaining the network of government officials who aid the illegal structure. [continues 920 words]
What changed is that the socalled "war" on drugs is now taken most literally. Our entire police organization seems entirely focused on the drug problem. Raids are conducted incessantly. Evidence is being collected against the so-called "drug lords" and their powerful protectors. As all wars do, this effort produces a body count. It creates collateral damage, innocents harmed in the pursuit of powerful criminal gangs. As all wars do, this one creates a fog: a climate of confusion where vigilantes jump into the action and where the criminals themselves start eliminating rivals. As the body count bloats, public resistance to the antidrug effort begins to build. [continues 817 words]
Although President Duterte's police methods have drawn concern in various parts of the world, even those who deplore his methods at home are praying that his 'war on drugs' would somehow succeed. However, international experts who have done extensive studies on the global drug wars are deeply pessimistic; they describe the "war on drugs" as a failed strategy, and are calling for a major policy "rethink." These experts have not condemned the extrajudicial killings, the shoot-on-sight and "surrender or else" orders in the present drug war, as some UN officials, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and certain international publications have. Their studies precede DU30's war by at least a couple of years. [continues 1824 words]
THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has withdrawn its support for President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign against illegal drugs, which the party described as having become "anti-people and anti-democratic." "In line with standing orders, the New People's Army (NPA) will continue to intensify its operations to arrest and disarm drug trade operators and protectors. However, these will no longer be considered as cooperative with the Duterte regime's undemocratic and anti-people 'war on drugs,'" according to a statement by the CPP released on Friday. [continues 359 words]
If the government wants charges to stick against public officials linked to the illegal drug trade, it should protect witnesses at least against high-value suspects. Last Wednesday Police Officer 2 Ryan Casiban was found dead at a firing range in Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu with only his pants on. The rest of his uniform plus his service M-16 rifle and police motorcycle were found in another area of the city. Investigators reportedly said Casiban was among those who identified police generals Marcelo Garbo and Vicente Loot as protectors of the illegal drug trade. The two are among the five police generals, three of them still in the active service, who were publicly identified by President Duterte as coddlers of drug trafficking. All five have denied the accusation. [continues 218 words]
A TOTAL of 3,257 extrajudicial killings (EJKs) were committed during the Marcos dictatorship. In contrast, there were 805 drug-related fatalities from May 10 (when Rodrigo Duterte emerged winner of the presidential election) to Aug. 12, per the INQUIRER count. If the current rate continues, the total number of EJKs for the six years of the Duterte administration will end up about 700 percent more than the killings committed during the 14 years of the Marcos dictatorship. President Duterte is either ill-advised or terribly underestimating the risk that he can be held liable at the International Criminal Court, given the circumstances of the killings. [continues 804 words]
THE Philippines has vowed to investigate reports of a wave of extrajudicial killings, the government said Sunday, after Washington warned military aid to its Asian ally was dependent on respect for human rights. According to media reports, nearly a thousand people have been killed since President Rodrigo R. Duterte won a landslide election victory in May largely on a pledge to kill tens of thousands of criminals. The US embassy warned the Duterte government on Friday that millions of dollars of military aid allotted to the Philippines was tied to adherence to the rule of law, due process and respect for human rights. [continues 637 words]
MANILA - Samsudin Dimaukom, the mayor of a town in the southern Philippines, was watching television Sunday after midnight when he was startled to hear the country's new president call out his name. It was no honor. President Rodrigo Duterte was reading a list of more than 150 officials he said were involved in the illegal drug trade. He ordered Dimaukom and the others to turn themselves in within 24 hours or be hunted down. Since he took office six weeks ago, Duterte, 71, has roiled the nation with a violent war on drugs that has left hundreds dead, most of them poor and powerless. [continues 261 words]
A COALITION of human rights advocates urged President Duterte yesterday not to make his war on drugs a war on human rights. In Defense of Human Rights and Dignity Movement (iDefend) emphasized the need to deal with the cause of drug addiction in the Philippines-poverty. Around 30 private groups gathered in Quezon City yesterday to launch iDefend, intended to "fill a vacuum" left by the collapse of the political opposition, as well as to provide legal services to families of victims of extrajudicial killings and police operations in Mr. Duterte's war on drugs. [continues 480 words]
MANILA - Samsudin Dimaukom, the mayor of a town in the southern Philippines, was watching television last Sunday after midnight when he was startled to hear the country's new president call out his name. It was no honor. President Rodrigo Duterte was reading a list of more than 150 officials he said were involved in the illegal drug trade. He ordered Mr. Dimaukom and the others to turn themselves in within 24 hours or be hunted down. "We were really surprised when the president came out to announce it," Mr. Dimaukom, the mayor of Datu Saudi-Ampatuan, said by email. "Not once were we involved in drugs. In fact, we were fighting drugs. I support the president's drug war." [continues 1172 words]
From underprivileged communities, police are taking their intensified campaign against illegal drugs to upscale bars and nightclubs. But Philippine National Police ( PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa made it clear he is not about to wage war with owners and operators of leisure establishments frequented by the rich, saying he only intends to get their cooperation. "First of all, I would like to initiate dialogue with them for a peaceful approach," he said. The glitzy clubs and bars, he said, are mostly located in Makati and in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. [continues 974 words]
The killings will continue, but martial law is not in the picture - that's my reading of President Duterte's speech directed at Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno. This administration doesn't need martial law, although it might declare a state of emergency in Sulu to crush the Abu Sayyaf. If the ongoing nationwide killing spree is sustained at its current rate, it may even surpass the body count of victims during martial law. Ferdinand Marcos at least tried to coat his authoritarian acts with legal niceties. [continues 1013 words]
Chief Justice Sereno went slightly off tangent when she instructed judges named in the "narco list" not to submit to the police without a warrant. She then wrote President Duterte to express her discomfort over the Name and Shame effort. The President, when he exposed the explosive list of names, did not ask the judges to be arrested. He asked those named to report to the Supreme Court, which has jurisdiction over them. The Court, eventually, did the right thing. It asked that the police furnish it with a bill of particulars and requested a retired justice to oversee an internal inquiry. [continues 823 words]
CEBU CITY- Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has described as "ill-advised and half-baked" President Rodrigo Duterte's decision to publicly release the names of over 150 local officials as part of his war on illegal drugs. The 66-year-old prelate said that while he supported the President's campaign, the fundamental requirements of due process and rule of law must be observed at all times. "There are people who welcome the President's move to name names, but there are also those who are anxious of what he did," Palma told reporters after he ordained 12 new priests at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown Cebu City on Tuesday. [continues 259 words]
Ill-advised and half-baked. This was how Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma described the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to publicly identify the local officials allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade. While he supports the President's campaign to curb illegal drugs, the 66year-old prelate said the fundamental requirements of due process and the rule of law have not been observed when he announced the names of so-called "narcopoliticians," judges and policemen involved in the illicit trade. He likewise called the drug list "not realistic," while at the same time expressing doubt over the inclusion of former Cebu City mayor Michael Rama in the list. [continues 842 words]
Early Sunday, President Rodrigo R. Duterte dropped another bombshell and announced to the public the names of seven judges, 52 incumbent and former mayors and vice mayors, three congressmen, one former board member and 96 police and military officers allegedly involved in illegal drug trade, bringing the total number of shamed individuals to 159. What could the "presidential shaming" of politicians, judges and policemen believed to be involved in illegal drug operation attain? If indeed they are really into the illegal drug business, could shaming make them stop their illegal activities? [continues 524 words]
IFUGAO Representative Teddy Brawner Baguilat is tagging the war on drugs waged by the administration as a war of the classes. Baguilat said treatment of suspects in the drug clean up has been discriminatory. "The rich and powerful are given deadlines to negotiate their surrender, are accommodated in the PNP White House, gets invited to coffee and are subject to an investigation. But the poor, the lowly drug pusher or the addict simply gets the bullet. It seems like the rules are different with the rich and the poor," Baguilat said. [continues 244 words]
I LAUD the government's resolve in pursuing its anti-drug campaign, particularly in bringing to justice alleged narco-politicians, judges and bad cops who have contributed and/or benefitted from the drug menace. However, I would like to raise some questions and concerns on how this war is being waged, especially on the latest list made public by President Duterte. Case build-ups and dangerous precedent Is the list the result of judicious case build-ups? Is it backed up by sufficient evidence that can stand the scrutiny of our courts? Will the government file the appropriate charges? [continues 261 words]
In a televised speech Sunday, President Rodrigo Duterte, speaking in the city of Davao, named 150 officials that he said were involved in the country's drug trade, including members of Congress, police officials, five retired and current generals and at least seven judges, and gave them a 24-hour deadline to surrender to police. Several have turned themselves in, including 18 mayors and 31 police officials, according to police statistics. "There is no due process in my mouth," Duterte said. "You can't stop me, and I'm not afraid even if you say that I can end up in jail." [continues 527 words]
President Threatens to Declare Martial Law PRESIDENT Duterte yesterday sharply rebuked Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno for cautioning judges not to heed his orders to report to police to explain their alleged involvement in illegal drugs and raised the possibility of declaring martial law in the event of a constitutional crisis between the two coequal branches of government. Sereno had warned in a letter to Duterte on Monday that "it would matter greatly to our sense of constitutional order" if the Supreme Court would be given the chance to discipline members of the judiciary as mandated by law. [continues 732 words]
Do You Prefer Martial Law? DAVAO CITY - The drug war cannot wait for the slow wheels of Philippine justice. This was President Duterte's response yesterday to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno's instruction to judges tagged by the government as drug coddlers not to surrender unless a warrant is issued for their arrest. He warned that if Sereno precipitated a constitutional crisis, he would defy her, and would order all members of the executive branch to do the same. Asking rhetorically if she would rather have him declare martial law to fight the drug menace, Duterte told Sereno in a nationally televised speech, "There is slaughter every day and you are just interested in the warrant of arrest." [continues 1051 words]
Inside Philippines
