SENATOR Panfilo Lacson said Sunday he had urged President Rodrigo Duterte to compensate the families of the people whom the Chief Executive admitted were unintentionally killed in the war against drugs.
“There must be some explanation with accompanying details as to what the President meant by ‘unintended killings’,” said Lacson, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs that has been investigating the summary killings in the country.He made the demand after Duterte admitted in interviews with journalists that “there were really killings unintended, I’m sorry there has to be casualty.”
Said Lacson: “Further, those killed as what he described as collateral damage in the drug war, especially those in slippers, must be given at the very least some compensation and justice.
“A simple burial assistance, and possibly scholarship grants especially if the ‘collateral damage’ who was killed was a breadwinner or if the one killed unintentionally got involved.”
Lacson also repeated his call to the Philippine National Police and the Duterte administration to form a composite team of seasoned investigators and intelligence operatives to probe the 4,000 vigilante killings that the police had earlier referred to as “deaths under investigation.”
Duterte has repeatedly denied that the killings are state-sponsored, and that he is not keen on going after big-time drug pushers.
