An outraged President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the authorities to investigate the murder of a 16-year-old student in Cebu, Malacañang said Thursday.
“Yeah, he gave directives to investigate it,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters.
Meanwhile, the reward for any information leading to the arrest of Christine Lee Silawan’s killer rose to P2 million.
Of that amount, P1 million will come from the Lapu-Lapu City government, P500,000 from a foreigner living in Leyte province, P200,000 from the Cebu Provincial Commission on Women and Children, and P100,000 each from the Central Visayas Police Advisory Council, the office of Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino, and a private individual.
Police had previously said three suspects were involved in the church collector’s death. Police Col. Lemuel Obon, chief of the Lapu-Lapu police, said the suspects were still in Cebu province.
Panelo, the President’s chief legal counsel, did not discount the possibility that the girl’s killer was a drug addict.
“We think it was done by a drug addict. Who would do that? Removing the facial skin? My goodness,” Panelo said.
On Wednesday night, Duterte weighed in on the killing of Silawan, who was reportedly raped and then had her head skinned.
“Yesterday, these sons of b****s killed someone and skinned her face,” Duterte said in a speech during the campaign rally of the ruling PDP-Laban party in Isabela.
Silawan, a student of Maribago High School, was first reported to be missing by her mother after the teener failed to return home from serving as a collector in church on Sunday.
Days later, she was found lifeless, naked from the waist down, and her face flayed to the bone in a desolate area in Bangkal village in Lapu-Lapu City.
The autopsy report said she was raped and then stabbed 16 times. “The killing of that girl. The police said it was done by a cult. I told them, f***** cult. Find the perpetrators, it’s drugs,” Duterte said.
As he expressed outrage over the incident, Duterte again warned the users of banned drugs that the remaining three years of his term would become the “most dangerous” time for them as he campaigned for a harsher war on drugs.
“I have three years left, I would make it the most dangerous time of your life as a drug pusher, drug lord,” Duterte said.
“If you saw it in the newspaper, the child was skinned. She had no face, the skull was left.”
In his speech, Duterte mentioned the case of a priest in Negros Occidental who was previously charged for raping a four-year-old girl. He also recalled the rape case involving former actress Maggie dela Riva.
“Maggie dela Riva, she was really beautiful. How could she have endured such brutality?” Duterte said.
READ: P1.6-million bounty up on arrest of Cebu girl’s killer
