President Rodrigo Roa Duterte issued early Sunday morning an ultimatum against communist rebels’ use of landmines and demanded inclusion of the battlefield issue in the peace talks or else the negotiations are off.
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He said the list has been validated and vetted by the military and police task forces he set up to investigate the illegal drugs “menace”, CNN Philippines said.
All active police officers named have been suspended, but the speech did not expand on the allegations Duterte was making against the officials on the list.
Archbishop Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said he is in “utter disbelief” over Mr Duterte’s campaign that has so far left more than 600 alleged drug pushers dead, many of them by unknown assailants or vigilante groups.
“(The accusations) might be true, it might not be true. “They should have due process, presumption of innocence”, he said.
Human Rights Watch, Stop Aids and International HIV/Aids Alliance are among more than 300 civil society groups that have signed joint letters to the International Narcotics Control Board and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, calling on them to break their silence over the crackdown.
The list included two of the five police generals he identified last month as protectors of drug syndicates and a town major who has recently surrendered to police. The judges he named were ordered to report to the Supreme Court.
In response to public outcry questioning the ethics of his methods, according to official transcripts released by the presidential palace, he said: “I don’t care about human rights, believe me”. “I’d like to give you the advice: once you hear your name mentioned here you are now relieved of your present assignments”.
“If you show the slightest violence in the resistance, I will tell the police, “Shoot them”, he told reporters and soldiers in the southern city of Davao.
The bodies are piling up as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war brings terror to Filipino slums.
Amid mounting criticisms against the rampant killings of drug suspects, Estrada said he will continue to support Duterte’s anti-drug policies.
This naming-and-shaming is the latest in a litany of hardline measures aimed at ridding the Southeast Asian country of crime, most notably drug- related offenses.
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According to police figures, more than 400 drug suspects have been killed while almost 600,000 others have surrendered since July 1 following Duterte’s inauguration.
