Manila: President Rodrigo Duterte is willing to tame his campaign against illegal drug trade after policemen were blamed for three separate incidents where three teenagers were killed whose parents said they were students, not drug pushers and drug addicts, a presidential spokesman said.
“The campaign against illegal drugs is something that the President has entirely committed his administration [to]; however, the manner in which these things are carried out need to really be re-examined,” said Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella.
“The fact that the Philippine National Police (PNP) is being investigated [on the deaths of three teenagers], that there are Senate hearings, indicate the whole nation is in the process of rethinking the way we do things. That is part now of the entire restructuring and renewing [of the government in its campaign against illegal drug trade],” said Abella.
“Malacanang is open to all significant and actually workable solutions,” said Abella, referring to a taskforce or commission that will look into cases of extrajudicial killings.
Talking about one of the controversial deaths of the teenagers, Abela said, “It is with profound dismay that we regard the disturbing death of 14-year old Reynaldo de Guzman. The National Bureau of Investigation has been ordered to conduct a thorough investigation.”
The same approach will be made in Duterte’s campaign against corruption and lesser crimes, said Abella, adding, “In other words, it’s [change] not just [applied on] one isolated event [such as the teenage deaths in the government’s campaign against illegal drug trade]. It’s the whole process that we’re undergoing, that we can see that there is a major rethinking going on,”
Senator Francis Pangilinan called on Duterte to stop his brutal drug war, adding only Duterte could put an end to the killings of the innocents and the abuses by erring policemen.
Public anger rose after the gruesome murders suffered by three teenagers were revealed.
De Guzman, 14, was found dead with 31 stab wounds, his face covered with clothes and packaging tape, as his corpse floated on a creek in Nueva Ecija, northern Luzon on August 6.
He was last seen with his friend Carl Arnaiz, 19-year-old student. They both left their homes in eastern suburban Cainta, Rizal to buy midnight snacks on August 17.
Policemen claimed they shot Arnaiz because he ran away while being chased in response to a taxi driver who complained of being a robbery victim.
But Arnaiz sustained two shots on the right part of the chest, one in the middle, one in the left, and one in the stomach. He had abrasions and hematoma in his right eye, and abrasions in the right part of his chest and lower back, his wrists were broken. Slugs were not recovered from his body. A morgue in Caloocan City called up his parents on August 28. He was a former interior design student from the University of the Philippines.
Policemen also claimed they shot Kian Lloyd Delos Santos, 17, because he ran away and shot back at chasing officers during an anti-drug campaign held in a depressed village in Caloocan City on August 16.
He was a senior high school student of Our Lady of Lourdes College in northern suburban Valenzuela Bulacan. He also helped his father, who operated a convenient store. His mother is a domestic helper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In a separate meeting with the parents of the victims, Duterte promised an impartial probe and vowed punishment for erring policemen.
As of July 26, the government’s 68,000 anti-drug operations resulted in the arrest of 97,000 suspects, surrender of 1.3 million drug addicts and death of 3,500 drug personalities. The police listed thousands of “deaths under investigation”, allegedly murders committed by drug syndicates.
