Duterte said they were members of a drug ring operating not only in the Philippines but in the whole of Southeast Asia. He identified one of them as Youhua Xu, who he said is “one of the biggest shabu importers in the Philippines. He was a member of a transnational drug trafficking organization.”
The nationwide general strike in Colombia, which began as a protest against tax increases in April (discussed in this space on June 12), continues to besiege that South American country. Several gut issues, of immediate and long-term perspectives, have been raised in the general strike, described by the Guardian as a “generational outcry over the…
President Duterte, in his final State of the Nation Address last Monday, said that his administration has made “great strides” in addressing the root causes of the armed conflict with the Left revolutionary movement “by empowering our kababayans who have been used by the communists for so many decades.” This was accomplished, he stressed, through…
The over-a-hundred-page ruling had been adopted unanimously by the 15 members of the Supreme Court on March 16, but was released to the media only last Wednesday (July 21). It rebuked President Duterte for his disdainful stance towards the International Criminal Court and his arbitrary withdrawal of the country’s membership from the global court. The…
Last week, the Supreme Court made public its amended rules on search warrant issuances and search operations, aimed at ending the abuses by law enforcers that have resulted in the killing of dozens and arrest of hundreds of activists in the past three years. The remedial measures are only applicable henceforth. They offer no comfort…
“If you have this coalition, you have a list of people who are there and can arm themselves. I will order the police. If you are qualified, get a gun and help us enforce the laws.” This was what President Duterte reportedly said, on June 25 at Camp Crame, in his keynote speech after he…
“Extrajudicial confessions are universally recognized as admissible in evidence against an accused provided they are voluntarily made and corroborated by evidence of the actual commission of the crime.”
She formally requested for authority to her office to begin investigating Duterte’s war on drugs for possible crimes against humanity involving murder. She proposed to include in the investigation the pattern of drug-related EJKs observed in Davao City during Duterte’s tenure as mayor from Nov. 1, 2011 to 2016, noting that in that period, the Philippines had already ratified the Rome Statute of 2002, a treaty establishing the ICC.
Its economy struck like ours by the global pandemic, the government of Colombia, in South America, proposed a law increasing taxes. The people opposed it with a general strike, launched on April 28, impelling the government to withdraw the bill and the finance minister to resign.
It shows an utter lack of rigor in the exercise of his duties as commander-in-chief, for instance, to vet intelligence information. It also indicates how lightly, if at all, he regards his oath of office to “faithfully and conscientiously fulfill my duties as President of the Philippines, preserve and defend its Constitution, execute its laws, do justice to every man and consecrate myself to the service of the Nation.”
Among several others, the National Union of People’s Lawyers and the human rights watchdog Karapatan – which both have been red-tagged and whose members have become EJK victims – have welcomed the Supreme Court’s response, the Senate resolution and Drilon’s filing of the anti-redtagging bill.