The Philippine National Police are now looking for four persons of interest in Davao City blast that have killed 14 individuals and injured 67 civilians.
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The regional police chief, Chief Superintendent Manuel R. Gaerlan, said witnesses said the man who left the backpack after getting a massage at the open-air market hurriedly walked away from the scene, pretending not to hear those calling his attention.
The proclamation orders the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police to undertake measures allowed by the Constitution and laws in order to suppress all forms of lawless violence in Mindanao and to prevent lawless violence from spreading and escalating elsewhere. Other officials have said that troops will assist the country’s police in anti-crime and anti-terror exercises, according to BBC. It is about 1,500 kilometers from the capital of Manila.
Rumors have swirled of a plot to assassinate Duterte, 71, which he has shrugged off as part of his job. REUTERS/Lean Daval Jr/File PhotoPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday “plenty will be killed” before the end of his campaign against illegal drugs that has led to the death of about 2,400 people since he became president two months ago.
Mr Duterte’s spokesman, Ernesto Abella, warned the public to be vigilant and avoid crowds. He typically spends his weekends in Davao.
The tough-talking Duterte, who took office as president in May pledging a brutal “War on Drugs”, has come under sharp criticism for encouraging vigilante-style killings of drug dealers and criminals.
Be proactive – Use the “Flag as Inappropriate” link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Duterte was scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama there, but that meeting is now in jeopardy after Duterte referred to Obama as a “son of a whore”.
He was due to visit Brunei and Indonesia before going to an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Summits in Laos starting on Tuesday.
While Davao itself is safe, it is in the region of Mindanao, a southern island province beset by decades of Muslim militancy.
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Philippines police Sunday were searching for three people wanted for questioning over the bombing of a night market in President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown blamed on an Islamic militant group.
