Pres. Duterte receives suspected drug lord Peter Lim in his homw in Davao City in July 2016.
Pres. Duterte was into his “I will kill you” element again during the PDP-Laban campaign rally at Negros Occidental last Friday. He was talking, as usual, about his campaign against illegal drugs.
He said every day, there’s news about shabu. “P***** i** talagang papatayin ko kayo because drugs will destroy my country. Nagkalat — hindi na halos ma-control eh. “
Apparently, he has not thought of assessing the efficacy of his “kill, kill” strategy as he himself admits the proliferation of illegal drugs remains unabated.
A scene after a police operation in one of the depressed areas in Metro Manila. VERA Files photo by Luis Liwanag.
One of the reasons that will make the International Criminal Court decide to exercise jurisdiction over alleged extra-judicial killings committed under the Duterte administration is when they see that the government is “unable or unwilling” to prosecute the crimes. It is called the principle of complementarity.
The communications filed at the ICC against Duterte and police officials alleged to be responsible for the over 5,000 killed during anti-drug operations is in the Examination stage. In her annual report last December, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office has received a total of 52 communications related to extrajudicial killings in the Philippines since she started the preliminary examination on Feb. 8, 2018.
She said her office will “ continue to engage with a variety of reliable sources and relevant stakeholders on all matters relevant to the preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines.”
When things are difficult, you laugh and you sing.
Those are coping mechanisms that Filipinos have developed into art.
There’s a song going around social media that is so much fun. It’s a new version of an old game song “May Pulis sa Ilalim ng Tulay.”
The song is usually sang in a party where each one adds a line to the original sentence about a policeman under the bridge. Often, as each one adds a sentence depending on his or her views and wit, the song becomes a sharp commentary.
