MANILA – The head of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said the mayor of a city in Mindanao should be held responsible for the spate of “summary” or unexplained killings of more than 800 suspected criminal elements in his area since 1998.
Lawyer Leila de Lima, the CHR chief, pointed out that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City could not escape responsibility for the killings mainly due to the failure of the police to solve these cases and bring the perpetrators to justice.
De Lima pointed out this is one of the major findings of the CHR during the three-day hearing it conducted in Davao City, which started from Monday to Wednesday.
However, the CHR chief admitted that the commission has yet to finalize its report, saying they would resume their inquiry on April 17 by inviting, in particular, the leaders of the “barangay” (village) where most of the killings occurred.
De Lima also acknowledged that during the hearing, they found no positive evidence that the killings were “state-sponsored.”
The killings, also known as “salvaging” in police parlance, have been blamed on a vigilante group, the Davao Death Squad, which allegedly operated with the tacit approval of Duterte and the police.
Due to his success in curbing criminality in Davao, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appointed Duterte, a staunch political ally, as her consultant on peace and order. But he has since resigned from that position.
While vehemently denying that he approved of the killings, Duterte nevertheless owned responsibility for the failure of the police to solve the cases.
On Tuesday, Duterte, an outspoken anti-crime crusader, stole the thunder on the ongoing inquiry when he announced he was giving up his supervisory role over the police and military security forces in Davao City.
Duterte said he already wrote Secretary Ronaldo Puno of the Department of Interior and Local Government and the concurrent chairman of the National Police Commission (Napolcom) that was resigning as the Napolcom’s deputized representative, which granted him control and supervision over the police.
But Malacanang, through Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, told Duterte to stay put with a warning that he could be held administratively liable for dereliction of duty if he pursued his offer to resign.
Ermita also reminded Duterte that as mandated by the Local Government Code, elected officials, such as provincial governors as well as city and municipal mayors, have the responsibility of maintaining and order in their provinces and localities.
And the officials, Ermita emphasized, could only achieve this by being deputized by the Napolcom to enable them to have control and supervision over the police.
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