De Lima deplores Duterte's threats to unleash more killings

Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has slammed Mr. Duterte for threatening to kill more people in an apparent rebuke of a short documentary film about his presidential abuses and excesses under his administration's murderous war on drugs.

De Lima, the staunchest critic of the administration's war on drugs, said she is worried that more people will die, considering that Duterte's assassins have always been quick to kill people upon his threats, if not direct order.

"Reminded of the killings committed during his watch, rather than act as a human being and show remorse for the atrocities, he doubled down and threatened more killings," she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 477.

"If only these threats were just harmless blabberings from an old man. They're not. [W]hat is clear though is that when the old man say 'kill', more people die. No amount of spinning or sugarcoating will cover up that reality. He does not even need to put the order in writing," she added.

After a five-minute video critical of the Duterte administration went viral, Duterte boasted he has killed many and is willing to unleash more killings in the country. "Patay? Ah marami akong pinatay. Marami pa. Ngayon mag-umpisa ako," he said.

Directed by Mike De Leon, "Kangkungan" features the reality about Duterte's bloody war on drugs and how it targets the poor, his subservience to China, and his attacks against critics and members of the opposition, among others.

"As soon as the media reports his threat to kill more people, more people end up dead. No person in his or her right mind would consider it a coincidence that the trail of deaths that would follow his words are from the hands of the police, who reports directly to him," De Lima noted.

The former justice secretary said it also remains alarming that some policemen do not fear accountability anymore because Mr. Duterte earlier promised to protect them from facing charges for carrying out his murderous campaign.

Amid these mass atrocities, De Lima urged her fellow public servants to use their positions to help restore checks and balances under the tyrannical rule of Duterte while demanding accountability for all the killings he promoted.

"I call on my fellow public servants, from the judiciary, to the Cabinet secretaries, to my colleagues in Congress, to the men and women in uniformed services, to those serving in the barangays. Let us restore the rule of law. For the sake of our future generation, let us stop this insanity," she said.

"We are a great nation in spite of him, not because of him. Let us restore the checks and balances, protect our democracy, and prevent our country from yet again falling into the dark shadows of tyranny. Never again," she added.

In 2016, De Lima filed Senate Resolution No. 9 which initiated a Senate investigation into the rampant extrajudicial killings and summary executions of suspected drug offenders in the country under the government's all-out war on drugs.

She has also filed SRNs. 357, 358, 421, 451 seeking for a Senate investigation into the supposed involvement of some unscrupulous police officers in cases of extrajudicial killings and summary executions.