he daughter of Tanauan City Mayor Antonio Halili, shot dead during a flag ceremony Monday, appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte to find justice for her slain father and to clear his name from allegations that he was involved in the illegal drug trade.
“We are pinning our hopes on you to clear my daddy’s name and give him justice,” Angeline Halili said in Filipino, in a text message to media. “We are counting on you. We are waiting for you to arrive here so you can see with your own eyes, and question the people who are feeding you malicious information so that you will know who is lying to your face.”
Requesting that the President pay her family a visit, she added: “I will know how you stand by whether you decide to come or not. If you don’t come, I will understand. I’m not stupid,” Halili said.
In a press briefing Thursday, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said politics could be behind Halili’s killing, even though the President had said the mayor “probably got what he deserved” because he was involved in the illegal drug trade.
Roque said while the police are investigating the drugs angle, they were also looking at politics and business as motives for his killing.
In that same briefing, Roque confirmed that the police recovered 5.56-millimeter ammunition from the crime scene indicating that the weapon used was an Armalite and not a sniper rifle.
Malacañang has yet to respond to Halili’s appeal.
On Friday, the League of Municipalities of the Philippines condemned the series of killings of mayors, but the Department of the Interior and Local Government said it saw no pattern in the violence but offered the local chief executives extra security if they needed it.
“Our country is government by laws and not upon the caprices of men,” the league said in a statement read on GMA-7, after the successive killings of Halili and General Tinio Mayor Ferdinand Bote this week.
“If some people believe that their elected officials have committed an offense, they should bring their grievances upon the courts which [have] the power to determine the guilt of erring officials and impose the corresponding penalty,” it added.
The league appealed to the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation to step up their investigation into the deaths and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Bote was killed in an ambush in Cabanatuan City on Tuesday, a day after Halili was shot dead during a flag-raising ceremony at city hall.
DILG officer-in-charge Eduardo Año said there was no pattern in the killing of the mayors.
“Each case has its own facts. They are not at all related. In fact, only a small portion [is] definitely drug-related,” Año said.
“Not all cases of killings are connected to illegal drugs. The rest are personal, political, and other reasons,” Año said in a mix of Filipino and English.
The DILG chief issued the remark after the LMP aired concerns over the safety of its members due to the successive killing of two Luzon mayors this week.
Año assured the mayors that there is no cause for concern and that the PNP is ready to provide them additional security.
Año said local chief executives just need to file a request for additional security with the PNP, which will validate if there is indeed a threat against them and if such threats are serious.
“The PNP decides on these requests on a case-to-case basis,” he said.
The LMP is seeking a dialogue with President Duterte over the back-to-back killing of mayors in recent days, including those who were linked to the illegal drug trade.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tinio in Nueva Ecija was gunned down by a motorcycle-riding assassin as he came out of the National Irrigation Administration office in Cabanatuan City.
A day earlier, Halili of Tanauan City, Batangas was shot dead by an unidentified gunman while attending the flag-raising ceremony with city hall employees.
The DILG chief assuaged the mayors’ fears, saying the PNP is on top of both cases and is doing its best to find the assassins.
Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan expressed deep concern over his safety due to the series of killing of local executives allegedly involved in the illegal drug activities in the country.
Pamintuan, who is also the president of the City League of the Philippines, expressed his anxiety during a nationwide radio interview, where he also lamented the slow process by which he could clear his name from allegations that he was involved in illegal drugs.
Pamintuan said that he applied for clearance six months ago on the advice of the President to clear his name of alleged illegal drug involvement and to have his name deleted from the President’s “narco-list.”
Pamintuan said that he applied for clearance with the Philippine National Police in Camp Crame and Philippines Drug Enforcement Authority six months ago.
A check with the regional office of PNP No. 3 in Camp Olivas showed the clearance was still being processed.
Pamintuan, who is serving his last term as city mayor, belongs to the administration party and plans to run as congressman of the First District of Pampanga in 2019.
He is also the chairman of the Regional Development Council, the highest policy-making body of Central Luzon.
Pamintuan was included in the list of narcopoliticians of President Duterte after agents of PDEA and police seized in series of raids and buy bust operations about P500 million of shabu in the city from 2015 up to the present.
Pamintuan denied any involvement in such illegal activities. With PNA