PRESIDENTIAL candidate Jejomar Binay on Thursday admonished his rival, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, for advocating extra-judicial killings as his main platform of government.
Binay, a human rights lawyer during Martial Law, said children were among the victims of extra-judicial killings in Davao City.
“Bale ba naman ang pinapatay diyan, gruesome ha, if you can only see a picture noong isang batang 14 years old. Pinagsasaksak ‘yon,” Binay said.
He was referring to the siblings Richard Alia, 18, Christopher Alia, 17, and Bobby Alia, 14, who were reportedly executed by the Davao Death Squad in 2001 and 2002.
All three were knifed to death, Binay said.
“Abogado ako, I am a human rights lawyer. Iyong pagpatay, ‘yung extra-judicial killing, mali ‘yon,” he said in a radio interview.
He said summary killings had no place in a country governed by laws.
The Roxas camp said Duterte’s “vapid pronouncements” only offended the people’s sensibilities and sense of decency.
Liberal Party spokesman Barry Gutierrez described Duterte as “rude, sexist and violent.”
“With his cursing, insults, and narrow-mindedness, can any one of us imagine Mayor Duterte being capable of doing this?” Gutierrez said.
“But if he becomes president, our lives and freedoms will suddenly become dependent on the whims of a volatile, foul-mouthed, temperamental man.”
Said Binay: “Extra-judicial killing was based on suspicion only. Kapag napagtsismisan ka, ‘yong papatay sa ‘yo na taong gubyerno ay maniniwala, papatayin ka na agad. That’s wrong. We don’t observe due process anymore.” Christine F. Herrera and Vito Barcelo
Binay also took a swipe at Duterte’s promise to solve heinous crimes and illegal drugs within six months. He insisted extra-judicial killings would not resolve criminality.
“Iyong sinasabi ng isang kandidato na six months, kahit ilang taon pa ho ‘yon hindi po maso-solve ‘yon [through extra-judicial killing],” Binay said.
Duterte had earlier admitted killing some 1,700 people after Amnesty International Philippines expressed alarm over his human rights record.
“Seven hundred daw pinatay ko? Nagkulang ho sila sa kwenta, mga 1,700,” Duterte said in an interview in December.
He also confirmed his ties with the DDS, a vigilante group that carried out summary executions in the city.
Several human rights groups have linked Duterte to extra-judicial killings, including a report from the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston.
“The mayor of Davao City has done nothing to prevent these killings, and his public comments suggest that he is, in fact, supportive,” Alston said in his report to the UN Human Rights Council in 2009.
Human Rights Watch earlier denounced the more than 1,000 killings committed by the DDS since the late 1990s.
“Duterte’s boastful brand of violent impunity should be a path to prosecution, not a platform for political office,” HRW Asia Division Deputy Director Phelim Kine said.
“Until the government adopts a zero tolerance attitude toward public officials who publicly endorse extra-judicial killings as an acceptable approach to governance, Duterte and others like him will pose a grave danger to the safety of the citizens they are elected to protect.”
Gutierrez discouraged the electorate from going for Duterte.
“Is this our idea of what we want our President to be? Rude, sexist, violent?” he said.