The clamor is not acceptable, not by the Commission on Human Rights and the Human Rights watch. This was the austere answer given by the Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte during his weekly cable television show, Ato ni Bay when he was asked if he would allow the return of extrajudicial killings in the city.
Duterte, who many times in the past, has been attributed to have connections with the Davao Death Squad, also clarified he also would not want the same groups in the past to put the blame on him again if criminals would start to get killed in the city.
“I do not encourage vigilante killings… but I can only encourage them to follow the law and I cannot prohibit vigilante killings because I am not in command anymore, in fact when I talk my voice is just as ordinary as anybody else’s,” the Vice Mayor clarified.
Human rights groups before were adamant the extrajudicial killings in the city were state-sponsored and even insisted the local police were connected to the killings.
“But because of the numerous killings in the city of late, let me just assure that the police and military are doing everything humanly possible to prevent these things from happening again or maybe catch up with the perpetrators,” Duterte assured.
The DDS, as the death squad was famously known, has been in considered to be in hiatus, but many sectors and individuals have lately urged for its return, with this being clearly indicated by online, radio and television surveys and even in social networking sites.
Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, said she would not be surprised if vigilantes will return to the city because of the sudden rise of robberies and random killings.
Vice Mayor Duterte, who has been cited many times for bringing back and maintaining peace and order to a once-chaotic Davao City, sat and met with the station commanders of the Davao City Police Office and gave them strict orders to solve the crimes under their different areas of responsibility or face sanctions.
In addition to this, Duterte warned criminals anew, saying that if they will insist on doing what they are doing, the city will once again become a very dangerous place for them.
“I cannot stop the relatives of these victims to exact revenge, because I myself would do just that and I would not care about any human rights group…you cannot stop me if they touch my family,” he said.
A similar statement he made when he was still mayor in 2009 earned him the spotlight and was called to a series of hearings conducted by then Department of Justice Secretary Leila De Lima. Today, many are of the opinion that the hearings were politically motivated and were a ruse to advance the plans of a political adversary who eventually lost.
In local radio and television programs, informal call in surveys from viewers and listeners have clearly shown the literal demand of people for the return of extrajudicial justice courtesy of the DDS. The public outcry came after motorcycle-riding gunmen killed a 23-year old nurse, Marjorie Kwan, in broad daylight on Fberuary 18. Before that, a 13-year old child was found dead last week with 14 stab wounds. Over the weekend, cars of churchgoers were ransacked and homes were robbed.
In different radio programs, 200 to 300 callers are in favor of the DDS returning. And in a local television news program, a survey question, which asked what solution would solve the current spate of crime in the city, 593 voted for the return of the Davao Death Squad and only 67, voted for the augmentation of the local police force.
