(Eagle News) – Senator Alan Peter Cayetano said that drug lords have started financing destabilization plans against President Rodrigo Duterte, and are allegedly conspiring with political personalities who also want to oust the President.
Cayetano revealed this in a recent press conference where he also cited how certain politicians against President Duterte are all citing the same lines to discredit the Duterte administration in the eyes of the international community.
He said these strange bedfellows curiously want the same thing – to stop President Duterte’s war on drugs.
“I do not know if it is part of organized crime to use money to continue business, spending money to get rid of him. Part of their plan is to get rid of Duterte even during the campaign. Nararamdaman namin yan in local and international level,” Cayetano said.
He said human rights violations were repeatedly cited in their script, even though President Duterte had time and time again repeatedly mentioned that police would only shoot in self defense those illegal drug suspects and illegal drug traders who would put up a fight, thus endanger the lives of arresting police personnel.
Even the PNP had denied that they have been killing drug suspects indiscriminately, saying that there had been more arrests – numbering to hundreds of thousands — than killings.
-Senators De Lima and Trillanes want Duterte out
Cayetano cited the politicians who had been mouthing the same lines – particularly Senators Leila De Lima and Antonio Trillanes — against Duterte.
On Trillanes, he said the senator has been “a man who loves conspiracies from Oakwoood until now.”
He said both Trillanes and De Lima had been trying to discredit Duterte in the international scene.
-Loida Lewis wants Duterte out too
He also cited Filipino-American Loida Nicolas Lewis, earlier tagged as one of those seeking Duterte’s ouster, and was reported to have close ties with Vice-President Leni Robredo. Lewis, he said, has in fact made a statement that Robredo should replace Duterte and that Robredo can do what Duterte is doing without the killings.
“Loide Lewis already said.. that walang destab, but the President is a mass murderer and that Leni can do what Duterte can do without killing anyone,” Cayetano said.
“Trillanes already said he’s a plunderer and a mass murderer, and dapat hindi siya President. Leila De Lima already said he’s a mass murderer, he’s a dictator… Obvious na yun, hindi ba destab yun?”
the senator pointed out.
-Killings highest during Aquino admin, says Cayetano
Cayetano said it was also not true that killings are at its highest in the Duterte administration.
On the contrary, there were higher incidences of killings during the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III, he said.
He cited data from the Philippine National Police (PNP) which showed that from 2010 to 2015, there were more cases of killings than during the Duterte administration.
He particularly cited the data from the PNP Directorate for Investigative and Detective management in 2011 when killings allegedly spiked and reached 11,864.
The highest was in 2013 when the cases or murder and homicide reached 16,160, which is more than double the alleged number of 7,000 killings which critics of the Duterte administration had been pinning on the war on drugs.
Cayetano also pointed out that extrajudicial killings are not state-sponsored as often repeated by politicians against President Duterte.
Based on records of the PNP, there are only 2,555 drug suspects killed in legitimate police operations, while the 5,136 killings of various nature are suspected to have been done by vigilantes, among others.
“We’re not whitewashing anything. We’re not saying walang problema ang kampanya, na walang extrajudicial killings. What we’re saying is that extrajudicial killings cannot and should not be state-sponsored,” he said.
(Based on a report by Meane Corvera, Eagle News Service)
