DA NANG, Vietnam—The country’s security forces protecting our maritime borders should always move to capture poachers and not kill them, President Rodrigo Duterte said as he expressed regret over the deaths of two Vietnamese fishermen recently.
“I repeat, this is for everybody’s guidance. You have to capture. If you cannot capture the poachers, you may pursue them but you have the limit of the international waters, then the boundaries would come into effect,” the President said.
The President insisted that under Philippine laws, one cannot kill a person and authorities could only use force if there is a danger of any victim getting killed during the robbery.
“But if the thief would run away and you have his back turned against you, we do not have any right at all to kill a human being because according to our courts, Supreme Court said that human life is more valuable than the thing that’s being carried away,” he said.
Duterte recently met with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, whom he personally assured “that the machinery of justice is working.”
Duterte, however, raised the possibility that Philippine authorities might have erred that led to the deaths of two Vietnamese fishermen who were killed by naval personnel last September.
“Alam mo, there’s one point that I’d like to point out. Were it not for the fact that this has to be proven in the investigation, that our ships, the Coast Guard were being rammed, binubunggo talaga, then placing the… you know, the personnel there, the Coast Guard people in danger,” he said.
Duterte said that the Philippines and Vietnam are already in the process of dealing the problem with the compensation of the bereaved families, and has ordered Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre to deport the remaining fishermen.
“I have ordered the other companions of that group which intruded into our economic zone, that they should—I told Aguirre to just dismiss the case and deport them. May namatayan na nga eh,” Duterte said.