President-elect Rodrigo Duterte says he has told US President Barack Obama the Philippines will remain allied with the US in a spat with China over the South China Sea, but may negotiate with Beijing directly if multilateral talks falter. “Davao City will be a murder capital for you”.
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A year ago the New York-based Human Rights Watch estimated that more than 1,000 people had died in Davao since the 1990s under Duterte’s leadership and urged the Philippines government to investigate the killings.
Clarita Alia, a vegetable vendor and the mother of the young man that Picardal helped bury in Davao in 2007, said she is willing to testify if a case against Duterte goes to court.
“Those who kill my country will be killed”.
Zhao said China and the Philippines are good neighbors and that China is looking forward to working with the Philippines and the new government to further enhance the bilateral relations between the two countries.
However, Duterte won by a landslide on a platform of being tough on crime, often promising in public to kill criminals and narrating how he personally executed hostage-takers in a prison riot.
While Obama is the first world leader to directly congratulate Duterte on his win, envoys of several countries have already met up with the tough-talking Davao City mayor who will soon take up the country’s highest post June 30.
Both Jalandoni and Sison said no guerrillas would actually serve in Duterte’s cabinet prior to reaching a political settlement, when the insurgents hoped to lay down arms and join a coalition government.
“What China’s Asian neighbors want is a China that feels secure, is prosperous economically, and actively participates in regional rule-making”, said Bower.
Duterte, in a press conference on Monday, May 16 said he may consider releasing all political prisoners “as part of confidence building”. “Police stations are then notified to ensure that police officers are slow to respond, enabling the death squad members to escape”, the human rights group said.
“Those who destroy the lives of our children will be destroyed”.
The Philippines had one police officer for every 651 people in 2012, according to official data.
“The death penalty is also contrary to human dignity and human rights”, Gascon said, noting that there is an increasing global trend for its abolition.
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Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Visaya, whom Duterte is considering to head the military, said he met over the weekend with the mayor, who told him he wanted troops to finish off the Abu Sayyaf within the president’s six-year term and to back up the police in going after drug syndicates. Asked how the government will fund this, Duterte spokesman Peter Lavina said: “We will find a way”.
