New Roundup 09 October 2022
Oct 09, 2022 • 9 min Read
Hostage-taking just latest hardship for De Lima since 2017 arrest, allies say | PHILSTAR.COM – Detainees taking detained former Sen. Leila De Lima hostage on Sunday morning is just the latest incident showing the “risk and indignities” that she has faced since her arrest on drug charges in 2017. In a statement, Akbayan party called for De Lima’s release and also asked how the hostage-taking happened at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame in Quezon City. “While we are relieved that the threat was neutralized, the greater and more urgent issue is that this event should never have happened in the first place,” Akbayan Party Executive Leader Perci Cendena said as the party called for an investigation into possible lapses by the police. “It is the height of hypocrisy that friends and allies of Senator de Lima are barred from seeing her, only to have her life threatened from within the facility itself. We will close ranks with the larger human rights community and work tirelessly to restore the freedom she rightly deserves,” Akbayan also said. The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights also condemned the incident as well as De Lima’s continued detention for cases that the former senator has maintained are fabricated. “Make no mistake about it — former senator [de Lima] does not belong in jail, surrounded by criminals and terrorists,” APHR chair Charles Santiago — a member of Malaysia’s parliament — said in a statement on Sunday. De Lima was acquitted in 2021 on one drug case is facing two more drug-related cases. The Department of Justice did not drop the other cases despite key witnesses recanting their allegations against her and said the recantations do not affect these cases. “De Lima was jailed for just one reason: for daring to initiate a Senate investigation on the criminal war on drugs launched by former president Rodrigo Duterte in what amounts to an act of personal vendetta by Duterte that bears no resemblance whatsoever to justice,” Santiago said. She was held hostage early on Sunday as three detainees attempted to escape the PNP Custodial Center, where high risk and high profile detainees are held. While the incident ended with her safe and unscathed, a police officer sustained critical injuries and the three detainees were killed by police. Police Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr., chief of the Philippine National Police, said that de Lima was not targeted by the detainees and was taken hostage because she was in the same detention center. President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. gave de Lima the opportunity to transfer detention centers, but she has declined the offer. Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos said De Lima told him he felt safe in the custodial center and would rather stay there. Meanwhile, groups and her allies have already called for her release. “This incident should serve to prompt the new government led by [Marcos] to do the only right and sensible thing it can do regarding the case of de Lima: to drop all fabricated charges against her and release her unconditionally and immediately,” APHR’s Santiago said. Meanwhile, in a separate statement on Sunday, the Commission on Human Rights said the incident “puts into serious question” the safety of the detainees in the facility. The agency also dispatched their own team to investigate the incident.
The ‘war on drugs’ quietly continues 100 days into Marcos administration | PHILSTAR.COM – Carl*, 23, and Sharon*, 38, lost their loved ones in the early days of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody “war on drugs”. They say they havve moved on, but they can never forget, even under a new government. Carl lost both his mother and stepfather on the same day in 2017. He said cops knocked on their door that day asking the family to participate in an identification survey to profile the neighborhood — a known informal settler’s area. The officers claimed they were there specifically for him, but his parents pulled him aside and spoke with the officers outside. After two tense hours, he watched as they reluctantly followed the officers in his place. That was the last time he saw his parents alive. “The police took advantage of Duterte’s orders because they knew they’d be protected… I hope the Marcos administration re-opens the cases of people who never did anything wrong,” he told Philstar.com in Filipino when asked about his hopes for the Marcos administration’s drug policies. Sharon’s younger brother, who was just 20 at the time, fell victim to the “palit-ulo” or “exchange heads” scheme that police officers allegdly to fulfill their monthly quotas. In those cases, the wife, husband or relative on a so-called drug list would be taken in case the actual person on the list could not be found. Sharon said her brother had nothing to do with drugs and was not even linked to any known users. She said she was initially supportive of Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign, but that incident convinced her that even innocent people were dying on the streets at night. “Everything Duterte started, I hope [Marcos] doesn’t do again. The life of a person, they’re not animals. I hope they put themselves in our shoes so they understand,” she said in Filipino the same interview. “For them, it was so easy to kill a human. But what happens to the ones who were left behind?” “I hope the president is transparent with people and isn’t one-sided… I hope he focuses more on people he knows need help. Not just on the side of the rich and powerful.” The two now serve coffee and wait tables at a cafe in Quezon City. They are just two of the thousands left behind by Duterte’s estimated 30,000 drug war victims. By the time Duterte stepped down from office, official data from the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency owned up to 6,252 “persons who died during anti-drug operations.” Most if not all of these, police said, violently resisted arrest and forced authorities to act in self-defense. How has the “war on drugs” gone in the first 100 days of Marcos? Here’s a look at how things have changed since then. Marcos has said he will continue the “war on drugs” of the Duterte administration but with a change in focus to bigger fish in the drug trade, while pushing for the rehabilitation of small-time drug users. The Department of the Interior and Local Government, which supervises the police, launched a new anti-drug program “Buhay Ingatan, Droga’y Ayawan (Take Care of Life, Say No to Drugs)” that Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos said would involve a “cross section of our society” and would have programs across government agencies. Abalos said at the launch that the anti-drug campaign would “be in accordance with the with the oath that I have taken on the basis of the Constitution.” Although specific programs have yet to be announced, Abalos said “it will be the same intensity as before”, but would also focus on reducing demand by addressing the roots of the drug problem like “poverty, social crimes, unemployment, problems of the youth.” While the tone has shifted, the supposed pivot to a health-centered approach has yet to be reflected on the ground. According to the monitoring of Dahas PH, a running count of reported drug-related killings by the Third World Studies Center at the University of the Philippines, 90 people have been killed between July 1 to September 30. In September, Marcos explained that the campaign on illegal drugs is an “internal matter.” He had opted to leave it out of his first State of the Nation Address in July altogether; he said a working group was still formulating policies for the administration’s anti-drug campaign. The death count is lowerso far but rights groups pointed out that people are still being killed. Attacks against activists and government critics continue, they said. Official red-tagging or the malicious labeling of individuals, groups and institutions as “communist-terrorists” is unabated. “The changes we’ve seen so far is mostly the tone, even the substance, of the statements coming from the president and his people,” Carlos Conde, Asia researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch told Philstar.comin an emailed commentary.
PNP seizes P6.7 billion worth of shabu; Abalos says it’s ‘biggest drug haul to date’ | INQUIRER.NET – The Philippine National Police (PNP) has seized 990 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine or “shabu” worth P6.7 billion, which Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. tagged as the largest drug haul in the country to date. “This afternoon will be historic in our country; this is probably the biggest drug haul in the history of the Philippines,” said Abalos in a press briefing on Sunday. “Ito na siguro ang pinakamalaking paghuhuli ng droga sa kasaysayan ng ating bansa. Halos isang toneladang droga, 990 kilograms of shabu, nagkakahalagang about P6.7 billion,” he added. (This is probably the biggest drug bust in the history of our country. Almost a ton of drugs, 990 kilograms of shabu, worth about P6.7 billion.) According to PNP Drug Enforcement Group (PDEG) Director Narciso Domingo, the drugs were seized in a buy-bust operation conducted at 4:45 p.m. Saturday in Tondo, Manila. This resulted in the arrest of Ney Saligumba Atadero, 50. During the arrest, arresting officers also discovered documents showing that a police officer from PDEG, identified as M/Sgt. Rodolfo Mayo Jr. was an accomplice of his. A hot pursuit operation was then conducted at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, which led to the arrest of Mayo, 48, in Quiapo, Manila. Two kilos of suspected shabu worth P13.6 million were then confiscated during this arrest. Meanwhile, another suspected accomplice of the group identified as Juden Francisco, 33, was also nabbed in Rosario, Pasig, along with seven of his cohorts, said Domingo. The other cohorts were identified as: Lyndon Dionson, 40; Kenneth Dionson, 40; Dindo Cochoco, 28; Ritzel Carballo, 39; Bernardo Yator Corridor, 56; Rodolfo Detalla, 54; and Virgilio Bacus, 37. Francisco was tagged as one of the top four most wanted suspects in Northern Mindanao for violation of Section 5, Article II of Republic Act 9165 or the “Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002,” according to Domingo.