Vigilantism in Davao to be practiced on a nationwide scale
�Wow, galing!� gushed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo after toughie and current Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte bragged about the summary execution of suspected criminals and how this was supposed to be the right way to attain peace and order.
Macapagal-Arroyo appointed Duterte on July 9 as an adviser on the anti-crime campaign. This signifies Macapagal-Arroyo�s support for Duterte�s way of having suspected criminals in Davao City summarily executed by illegal death squads. Macapagal-Arroyo shamelessly advocates Duterte�s bloody record of riding roughshod on due process and trampling on human rights.
Macapagal-Arroyo wishes to project herself as a tough and firm leader in the campaign to defeat criminality in the country. But whatever posturing she does, she cannot cover up the fact that the brains behind the biggest crime syndicates are highly placed officials in the military, police and civil bureaucracy.
There is really nothing new about such posturing. Violations of human rights have worsened under the current regime, including the growth in the number of �salvaging� victims. The summary executions target, in the main, leaders and members of Bayan Muna, activists and ordinary citizens suspected of supporting the revolutionary movement. The rights of Red fighters who have been captured or rendered hors de combat are outrightly trampled upon.
With Macapagal-Arroyo�s brazen bias for salvaging, and with her regime�s supposed priority to enforce and prove her new �strong republic� slogan, the number of �salvaging� cases and other brazen violations of human rights are sure to rise along with the intensification of militarization nationwide.
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