President Duterte visits the night market on Roxas Avenue in Davao City where 14 people were killed and 68 others injured after an explosion tore through what Davaoeños call their happy place. “There is a crisis in this country involving drugs, extrajudicial killings and there seems to be an environment of lawless violence”, said Duterte, who served as mayor of Davao for years before being elected president in June.
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“It’s not until it’s a threat against the people martial law, and against the nation …”
“I have this duty to protect this country”, he said.
That is Malacañang’s advice to Filipinos after a blast left 14 people dead in Davao City.
Senior Superintendent Michael John Dubria, police chief of Davao, said in a news briefing the “highly explosive arsenal” could have been placed inside a massage booth at around 10.30pm supposedly by a man seen fleeing the scene just before the explosion.
The attack comes as the uncompromising president wages war against drug kingpins and dealers, Islamist rebels, and corrupt bureaucrats.
After the explosion in the night market on Friday evening, there were reports of a transmission tower bombed in North Cotabato and the Polomolok vice mayor’s house damaged by a hand grenade explosion in South Cotabato.
“Right now, we can not yet give definite answer to as to who is behind this as we are also trying to determine what really exploded”, said Paolo Dutertge on the city government’s Facebook page.
His election has prompted a spike in drug-related killings, with more than 2,000 people killed since he took office on June 30, almost half of them in police operations.
In addition to the flurry of drug cartel violence, Islamic extremism has been a growing problem for the island nation in recent years – a claim made earlier in the U.S. presidential cycle by Donald Trump that resulted in widespread mockery and laughter – led primarily by Abu Sayyaf.
Rumours have swirled of a plot to assassinate Duterte, 71, which he has shrugged off as part of his job. Although President Duterte takes office in Manila, he spends his weekends in Davao, his hometown.
Asked if he thought drugs gangs were behind it, Duterte said: “It is also being considered”.
The attack comes on the heels of Duterte beginning an overseas trip to Brunei, which he then cancelled.
Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Rami has said that the attack is a sign of unity of groups that have pledged their allegiance to Daesh, and warned of similar strikes.
Davao is located in Mindanao, a large southern island beset by decades of Muslim insurgency.
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However the Abu Sayyaf, a much smaller and hardline group infamous for kidnapping foreigners to extract ransoms, has rejected Duterte’s peace overtures.
