President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday, October 4, that the current drug problem in the Philippines has sometimes tempted him to put the country under martial rule.
“There are 6,000 barangay captains doing their own thing, manufacturing shabu. How am I supposed to deal with – sometimes I am tempted really to declare martial law,” Duterte before a Jewish community.
Duterte visited a synagogue in Makati to apologize for his earlier Hitler remarks.
He added that he was told how martial law was “not feasible,” which is why he declared a state of lawlessness instead.
Duterte’s declaration of a state of national emergency was proclaimed to be on account of state of lawless violence, after the deadly bombing in Davao City on September 2.
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea then told the media that the drug problem in the Philippines was one of the reasons behind the declaration. This was also echoed by presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo, who said that even before the Davao blast, the declaration was already being drafted, due to the issues of terrorism, drugs, and criminality nationwide.
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This is not the first time Duterte mentioned martial law. He also threatened Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno with it after she criticized Duterte’s drug list, which included a few judges.
Duterte once said that he would never declare martial law as a sign of respect for the memory of his mother, Soledad Roa Duterte, who led the fight against the Marcos dictatorship in Davao City.
While citing narco-politics as his reason for considering martial rule at times, he lashed out at Senator Leila de Lima once more for her supposed links to the drug trade.
“The portals of the national government [were] already tainted with narco-politics when they elected Senator de Lima,” he said.
Since Duterte assumed the presidency, there has been over 3,600 deaths linked to his anti-drugs campaign. He has repeatedly said that he would assume “full responsibility” for the drug suspects killed during legitimate police operations, but maintained that the government does not sanction extrajudicial killings.
Source: (rappler.com)
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