He refused, however, to give further details stressing it may jeopardize the ongoing investigation into the bombing at a night market late Friday in southern Davao City – where President Rodrigo Duterte served 22 years as mayor.
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Bodies scattered and ambulances rushed to the scene. This contradictions left the public puzzled as to what this state of lawlessness really entails and for how long it will be implemented.
Investigators on the scene discovered remnants of a mortar shell and additional indicators in a post-blast analysis that have determined that the explosion was the result of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). The talk has been intensified by a crackdown on drugs that has killed more than 2,000 people since his June 30 inauguration.
“The European Union stands in solidarity with the people and the Government of the Philippines following yesterday evening’s bomb attack in the city of Davao”, it said in a statement released Saturday.
“I warned, I remember warning everybody that there could be a reprisal because of the pressure there in Sulu which is going on”, Duterte said.
The explosion instantly killed 14 people and injured 71 others as the market is a very popular area in the city.
The “state of lawlessness” is the mildest of the three executive powers the President can order, giving him the power to summon the military and work more closely with police, but falls short of being a declaration of martial law.
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.
The blast hit Davao City on Friday, as Duterte was in town for a visit.
However, Chief Inspector Andrea De la Cerna, spokeswoman of a task force investigating the explosion, said they were not ruling out other motives for the attack.
“Unfortunately, we can not frisk or order people to stop because it would be fascistic”.
Though Davao itself is relatively safe, it is in Mindanao, a large southern island province beset by poverty and decades of Muslim insurgency.
Some commanders of the Abu Sayyaf, which is blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization for deadly bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings, have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. Experts say that there is no evidence, however, that Islamic State is actively supporting Abu Sayyaf.
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Abu Sayyaf spokesperson Abu Rami said the attack is a “call for unity to all mujahideen in the country”, ABS-CBN television news reports on its website.
