(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday stood by the policemen who conducted the raid that led to the deaths of alleged druglord Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. and several others, noting that his men had the right to protect themselves.
“The police and the military should make sure that their enemies are dead…Otherwise, you end up with a dead policeman or military,” he said in a speech during the 113th founding anniversary of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
He noted that the Parojinogs were “running the city as if it were a feudal state.”
The mayor was also included in the list of narco-politicians President Duterte read in public.
According to the President, warrants could be implemented any time of the day, noting that no one in his right mind would unload shabu during the day.
“I will stand by what the police did there…I would rather see dead criminals..May mga pamilya din ito, they say. E ang mga pulis, wala?” he said.
Apart from Parojinog, his wife Susan, brother Octavio Jr, sister Mona, and 11 others, were killed in the early-morning raid held by members of the Regional Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), Misamis Occidental Police Provincial Office and the Ozamiz City Police Station, of the Parojinog residence on July 30.
The police said they were met by a volley of fire while they implemented search warrants, prompting them to retaliate.
Parojinog’s daughter Nova Princess, also the city’s vice mayor; and her brother, Reynaldo Jr., have been arrested and charged for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act.
Human rights advocates alleged what happened was a rubout, also noting that one of the policemen who led the raid, Ozamiz chief of police Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido, was the local police chief when drug suspect Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, also the father of known drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, was shot dead in his cell in a sub-provincial jail.
Espenido denied any of the allegations.