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Sunday, February 9, 2025

Enrile: Duterte’s bloody war on drugs illegal

“Would the DOJ take the cue from what Enrile has said and file criminal charges against Duterte?”

IF NO less than Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile is now saying the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs was not a legitimate law enforcement policy, contrary to what its supporters believe, what does that imply?

From where we sit, it can only mean that the country’s judicial system can now go hammer and tongs after the former president and make him accountable before a court of law.

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After all, Mr. Rodrigo Duterte no longer enjoys immunity from prosecution like when he occupied the highest elective position in the country.

Besides, the ex-president has admitted in testimonies at hearings on extra-judicial killings recently conducted by the Senate and House of Representatives that he really ordered the police to bear down hard on drug traffickers and drug users and even kill them if they resisted.

He also admitted ordering policemen to coax drug suspects to fight back to give them the license to kill.

The problem, as we know now, is the police killed thousands of drug traffickers and users even if they offered no resistance when accosted by law enforcers.

Duterte has even stated before lawmakers that he takes full responsibility for the 6,400 killings declared by the Philippine National Police as the official death toll between 2016 and 2022. But human rights groups here and abroad believe the death toll in Duterte’s war on drugs has actually reached between 25,000 and 30,000.

Enrile emphasized that to his recollection, the country’s “anti-drug law did not authorize killing suspected people with impunity.” Many of Duterte’s followers, he said, believed the bloody drug war was a legitimate law enforcement policy. “It was not,” he added.

The former Senate President and Defense Secretary stressed “our Constitution never authorized summary killings of (criminal) suspects…Even criminals caught red-handed are not authorized by law to be killed summarily unless they resisted with violence,” he pointed out.

Enrile explained the Bill of Rights of the 1987 Constitution clearly states no person should be deprived of liberty and reminded Duterte that in his oath of office as president in 2016, he promised to “preserve and defend its Constitution, execute its laws, do justice to every man, and consecrate myself to the service of the Nation.”

Would the DOJ take the cue from what Enrile has said and file criminal charges against Duterte?

Augmented defense spending

It is entirely correct for the Marcos Jr. administration to reinforce defense spending to allow the Philippine military to strengthen its capabilities and foster closer security cooperation with other friendly countries.

The goal is to increase defense spending to a minimum of two percent our gross domestic product. With an augmented defense budget, the Philippines can more effectively implement its Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept which requires substantial funding for our military establishment.

Under the CADC, our military aims to safeguard our territorial integrity in our 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone or EEZ.

The national government has in fact allocated more funds to continue Horizon 3 of the Modernization Program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines focusing in acquiring equipment and weapons systems for external defense.

The recent deployment of the medium range Typhon Medium Range Missile System in the 2024 edition of the Balikatan joint Philippines-US military exercise was intended to train the AFP in operating this advanced weapon system.

The US decided to leave it in the country after the joint military exercise, to better acquaint our soldiers with its capabilities. We have even offered to purchase the missile system as part of our military modernization program.

While the deployment of the Typhon missile system here has made Beijing hot under the collar because it claims this will intensify the arms race and disturb peace and stability in the region, we need to beef up our defense capabilities to respond to rising tensions right in our EEZ.

The Philippine government is duty-bound to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity as directed by our fundamental law.

China cannot dictate to the Philippines what weapons we should get to defend ourselves from harm, in the same manner that we cannot tell them what weapons they can have to defend themselves from both internal and external threats.

 (Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)

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