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…
Tags: At Ground Level
SC ruling rebukes Duterte for disdaining the ICC
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…
Justice for those killed in search warrant abuses
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…
Arming civilians as ‘force multipliers’
“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…
ICC may use Duterte’s statements against him
“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.”
ICC probe on ‘drug war’ must be pursued
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.
With peace accord stalled, unrest besieges Colombia
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.
Duterte airs questionableview on drug-war killings
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.”
Positive steps to address extrajudicial killings
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.
‘Something’s terribly wrong’
The Calabarzon killings were actually the latest of the killings that have provoked such condemnation. Still unresolved are the killings of nine Tumandok indigenous community members in similar police operations in Panay Island last Dec. 30, the attempted slaying of the Tumandoks’ lawyer in Iloilo, as well as the killing by police anti-drug operatives of the mayor of Calbayog City.
Rights violations in wars vs insurgency, illegal drugs
Criticized for its muddled, bumbling response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Duterte government has been trying to rev up its two priority wars – against insurgency and against illegal drugs – in the remaining 14 months of its term.