Davao city is President Rodrigo Duterte’s home city, and is the third most populous in the country, with about two million people. It occurred at a busy night market known to attract thousands on Mindanao, the southern Philippine island where the city is located.
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An improvised explosive device caused the explosion, presidential spokesman Martin Andanar said.
Police in the capital Manila went on full alert following the deadly blast.
Duterte, who was in Davao at the time of the bombing, visited the blast site and has been monitoring the situation there with his cabinet and top security officials.
More than 2,000 people have died in the war on crime.
Duterte, who inspected the scene of Friday night’s attack at a night market in downtown Davao city, said his declaration did not amount to an imposition of martial law.
Duterte had been mayor of Davao for most of the past two decades, before winning national elections in a landslide this year and being sworn in as president on June 30.
More than 2,000 people have died in his unprecedented anti-crime crackdown, drawing widespread worldwide condemnation over an apparent wave of extrajudicial killings.
Duterte’s office said it “was rooted” in an article of the constitution that puts the president in charge of all armed forces and states that when necessary, he “may call out such armed forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion”.
Rodrigo Duterte, front centre, salutes the flag-draped coffins of 15 soldiers killed in a gunbattle with Muslim Abu Sayyaf militants on Monday. Emergency teams were already in place.
She said the people of North Cotabato would “pray for vigilance, calmness and continued peace”. “There are bomb threats everywhere and some of my schoolmates are victims of the explosion and now dead”.
“I saw some smoke”. I thought it’s just barbecue.
“A$3 lot of people are wounded, shocked, traumatized”, he said.
The memorial Mass, celebrated by Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, was also attended by Mayor Sara Duterte and other officials, including city police director Senior Supt.
MOSCOW – Islam Karimov, who crushed all opposition in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan as its only president in a quarter-century of independence from the Soviet Union, has died of a stroke at age 78, the Uzbek government announced Friday. The violence killed more than 120 thousand people.
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Duterte says he may “invite uniformed personnel to run the country according to my specification”, but insisted the declaration isn’t the same as martial law, adding that civil liberties, including writ of habeas corpus, haven’t been suspended.
