Tag Archives: Duterte

Defiant Duterte threatens harsh measures as thousands flee Islamic State

A government troop stands on guard checking vehicles evacuating residents from their hometown of Marawi city in southern Philippines, as it drives past a military checkpoint in Pantar town, Lanao Del Norte, Philippines May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Romeo Ranoco

PANTAR, Philippines (Reuters) – Thousands of civilians fled fighting in the Philippines on Wednesday as troops sought to contain Islamic State-linked militants who took over large parts of a city, set building ablaze and captured a Catholic priest and other Christians.

President Rodrigo Duterte said he had no choice but to declare martial law on his native island of Mindanao following a failed raid by soldiers on Tuesday on a hideout of the Maute militant group, which triggered clashes and chaos across the largely Muslim city of Marawi.

Duterte said Islamic State could not be allowed to gain a foothold in the Christian-majority Philippines and he would do whatever it took to rebuff extremists from the Maute group and the allied Abu Sayyaf, even if it meant many would die.

“Anyone now holding a gun, confronting government with violence, my orders are spare no one, let us solve the problems of Mindanao once and for all. Do not force my hands into it,” said Duterte, who cut short his visit to Russia to return to Manila.

“If I think you should die, you will die. If you fight us you will die. If there’s an open defiance you will die and if it means many people dying, so be it. That’s how it is.”

Soldiers and rebels set up checkpoints and roadblocks on routes in and out of Marawi as a stream of men, women and children fled. Long queues of pickup trucks and jeeps crammed full of people and loaded with belongings snaked on roads leading into nearby towns.

Battles abated on Wednesday as the military tried to isolate Maute fighters while awaiting reinforcements to the city of 200,000 people, which an official described as a ghost town. Maute snipers and booby traps were hampering operations, which could last three more days, the military said.

Thirteen militants and seven members of the security forces have so far been killed and 33 troops wounded in the fighting, according to the military.

Duterte said martial law would mean checkpoints, arrests and searches without warrant, and it would go on for as long as it took to restore order, but he would not tolerate abuses of power by police or soldiers.

He said he would consider some legal measures in the central Visayas region next to Mindanao to facilitate arrests, and might even declare martial law nationwide if he felt extremists had proliferated. He was also furious that the Maute group had hoisted the flag of Islamic State.

EXTREMISTS HAVE ARRIVED

“I made a projection, not a prediction, that one of these days the hardest things to deal with would be the arrival of ISIS in our country,” Duterte said, referring to Islamic State.

“The government must put an end to this. I cannot gamble with ISIS because they are everywhere.”

The military has not explained how the raid on an apartment hideout went so badly wrong and resulted in Maute gunmen going on the rampage and taking over roads, bridges, buildings and a hospital.

Duterte said he had heard reports that a police chief in Marawi may have been beheaded by the Maute.

The armed forces said it was on top of the situation but residents who fled told a different story.

“The city is still under the control of the armed group. They are all over the main roads and two bridges leading to Marawi,” student Rabani Mautum told Reuters in Pantar town, about 16 km (10 miles) from Marawi.

Duterte said martial law in Mindanao, which would apply for 60 days initially, would be like that of the 1970s rule of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, remembered by many Filipinos as one of the darkest chapters of recent history. He said Marcos’ use of martial law was “very good”.

The Catholic church said rebels had taken hostage Father Chito Suganob, a priest at Marawi’s Cathedral of Our Lady Help of Christians, and several churchgoers.

“They have threatened to kill the hostages if the government forces unleashed against them are not recalled,” said Father Socrates Villegas, president of Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

“We beg every Filipino to pray fervently.”

Tuesday’s raid was aimed at capturing Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf group notorious for piracy, banditry and for kidnapping and beheading Westerners.

The Maute and Abu Sayyaf have pledged allegiance to Islamic State and have proved fierce opponents for the military.

Critics chided Duterte for what they saw as an overreaction in declaring martial law on an island the size of South Korea and the second biggest in the Philippines, after an incident in one city.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, a group of human rights attorneys, called it “a sledgehammer, knee-jerk reaction” that would “open the flood gates for unbridled human rights violations”.

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema, Enrico dela Cruz, Manuel Mogato in Manila; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Duterte says China’s Xi threatened war if Philippines drills for oil

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in Beijing. REUTERS/Etienne Oliveau/Pool

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Friday Chinese counterpart China Xi Jinping had warned him there would be war if Manila tried to enforce an arbitration ruling and drill for oil in a disputed part of the South China Sea.

In remarks that could infuriate China, Duterte hit back at domestic critics who said he has gone soft on Beijing by refusing to push it to comply with an award last year by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which ruled largely in favor of the Philippines.

Duterte said he discussed it with Xi when the two met in Beijing on Monday, and got a firm, but friendly warning.

“We intend to drill oil there, if it’s yours, well, that’s your view, but my view is, I can drill the oil, if there is some inside the bowels of the earth because it is ours,” Duterte said in a speech, recalling his conversation with Xi.

“His response to me, ‘we’re friends, we don’t want to quarrel with you, we want to maintain the presence of warm relationship, but if you force the issue, we’ll go to war.”

Duterte has long expressed his admiration for Xi and said he would raise the arbitration ruling with him eventually, but needed first to strengthen relations between the two countries, which the Philippines is hoping will yield billions of dollars in Chinese loans and infrastructure investments.

The Hague award clarifies Philippine sovereign rights in its 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone to access offshore oil and gas fields, including the Reed Bank, 85 nautical miles off its coast.

It also invalidated China’s nine-dash line claim on its maps denoting sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.

Duterte has a reputation for his candid, at times incendiary, remarks and his office typically backpeddles on his behalf and blames the media for distorting his most controversial comments.

Duterte recalled the same story about his discussion with Xi on oil exploration in a recorded television show aired moments after the speech.

He said Xi told him “do not touch it”.

He said Xi had promised that the arbitration ruling would be discussed in future, but not now.

Duterte said China did not want to bring up the arbitral ruling at a time when other claimant countries, like Vietnam, might also decide to file cases against it at the arbitration tribunal.

It was not the first time the firebrand leader has publicly discussed the content of private meetings with other world leaders.

His remarks came the same day that China and the Philippines held their first session in a two-way consultation process on the South China Sea.

They exchanged views on “the importance of appropriately handling concerns, incidents and disputes involving the South China Sea”, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that gave few details.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Martin Petty)

U.S., Philippine troops train for typhoon as Duterte puts war games on hold

Filipino soldiers, member of a decontamination unit, check a mock rescuers, as a part of a chemical scenario during the Philippines and United States annual Balikatan (shoulder to shoulder) exercises inside the Fort Magsaysay military headquarters in Nueva Ecija province, north of Manila, Philippines May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Martin Petty

FORT MAGSAYSAY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippine soldiers crawl through narrow pipes to save civilians and haul casualties by ropes from atop a derelict building, coached by U.S. army teams in a simulation of a rescue after a ferocious typhoon.

Soldiers practice putting on protective overalls and drilling through collapsed rubble, in exercises part and parcel of “Balikatan” (shoulder to shoulder), the conventional warfare exercises that for decades have bolstered a treaty alliance and helped preserve a U.S. strategic foothold in Asia.

But this year’s edition is a shadow of what it was a year ago, involving only half the 11,000 troops, and stripped of all combat-related exercises at the behest of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte makes no secret of his disdain for an alliance with the United States that he sees as an obstacle to his rapprochement with China, and has tamed Balikatan to avoid provoking Beijing, and to hammer home his message that the Philippines is no U.S. lackey.

The 2016 exercises, which Duterte had said would be “the last”, featured live-fire drills, amphibious landings and a combat simulation of the re-taking of a South China Sea island from an unspecified enemy.

What’s left this year is largely Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) training, seen on Friday’s at a military base in Nueva Ecija province, where forces practised for the scenario of a typhoon striking the capital Manila.

“It’s instruction-based, hands-on and practical and they’re doing pretty good,” said Sergeant First-class Jay Bal, a Filipino-American who is among 30 members of the Hawaii National Guard training Philippine army engineers and rescue teams.

The idea of Balikatan was to rehearse a joint defense plan under the old allies’ 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty, one of several agreements Duterte has threatened to abrogate, arguing the U.S. troop presence could make the Philippines a target for Chinese aggression.

Duterte, who holds talks in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, has reversed a Philippine foreign policy that prized close U.S. ties and saw China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea as a threat to its sovereignty.

Duterte has denounced Washington for “hypocrisy” and for treating the Philippines “like a dog”. He has shunned all U.S. activities in the Philippines, but made a point of touring visiting warships from China and Russia in recent weeks.

AVOIDING ANTAGONISM

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the training exercises were valuable but Duterte wanted no more “war games”.

“We are concentrating on HADR, counter-terrorism, and many things related to that,” he said last week.

“The president doesn’t want to antagonize some people in the neighborhood.”

Like many U.S. officials, Marine Lieutenant-General Lawrence Nicholson, the commander leading Balikatan, insists the alliance remains strong, and the removal of combat training did not devalue the exercises.

“These are skills that are pertinent to any type of military operation,” he said.

Many experts say that geopolitical realities mean ties are unlikely to take a permanent hit from Duterte’s hostility and say the Philippine military’s mistrust of China means it will not risk losing its U.S. support.

Richard Heydarian, an expert on politics and international affairs at Manila’s De La Salle University, said the bare-bones Balikatan indicated a “mitigated downgrade” in the U.S. relationship, but that was easily reversible and contingent on China’s actions and the foreign policy approach of the Trump administration.

“Duterte clearly respects his military, which is clear about its suspicions of China but unclear about America,” he said, referring to the uncertainty about U.S. priorities in the region.

“China is consolidating with its strategic objectives, but I don’t think China will forget those plans just because Duterte talks nice to them.”

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.N. expert keen to probe Philippines killings, but won’t debate Duterte

Agnes Callamard, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, answer questions during a interview by the local media at a compound of University of the Philippines in Quezon city, metro Manila, Phiippines May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

MANILA (Reuters) – A United Nations expert who irked the Philippines with a surprise visit said on Saturday she was keen to return and investigate alleged summary killings, but only if President Rodrigo Duterte drops his condition that she must hold a debate with him.

Agnes Callamard, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, has been vocal about allegations of systematic executions in the Philippines as part of Duterte’s war on drugs. Thousands have been killed since he came to power in June last year.

A planned visit by Callamard in December was canceled because she refused to accept Duterte’s conditions.

She turned up in an unofficial capacity on Friday, telling an academic conference on human rights issues that she would not carry out any research this time.

“I am committed to continue my dialogue with the government and I am committed to undertake an official visit, either by myself or with the special rapporteur on the right to health,” Callamard told reporters in Manila.

Duterte has sought a public debate with Callamard before allowing her to conduct an inquiry into allegations of human rights violations against him, and that she be placed under oath before answering questions from the government.

The maverick leader has previously stated his openness toward being probed by the U.N. and western governments, but only if he gets to publicly ask investigators questions, during which he said he would “humiliate” them and create a “spectacle”.

The government insists it must be given the opportunity to question U.N. rapporteurs because the Philippines had already been maligned by allegations of systematic state-sponsored killings of drug dealers and users.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said on Friday the government would complain to the U.N. after Callamard failed to notify it of her Manila visit.

It turned out, however, that Callamard had actually informed the government in advance of her trip through the Philippine mission in Geneva.

But on Saturday, the government issued a statement, this time saying Callamard “conveniently failed to disclose” that the Philippine mission had asked her to reconsider the trip since Philippine officials would be in Geneva at the same time and were expecting to see her.

“Her delayed reply came on the day she left for the Philippines. This was neither timely nor proper courtesy accorded to a sovereign nation,” the statement said.

(Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Martin Petty and Clelia Oziel)

Philippines’ Duterte will pay price for drugs killings, detained senator says

Philippine Senator Leila de Lima gestures during a news conference at the Senate headquarters in Pasay city, metro Manila, Philippines September 22, 2016. Picture taken September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

MANILA (Reuters) – A senator and detained critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has warned he and his “blind followers” will pay for ignoring alleged extrajudicial killings, and should stop trying to fool the world their crackdown was above board.

Leila de Lima, who last year led a Senate probe into alleged summary killings during Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign, was arrested last week and has been remanded in police detention on drug charges.

“In due time, your president and those who blindly enforce his illegal orders to kill, fabricate evidence and concoct lies will be held accountable,” De Lima said in a handwritten note posted on her official Facebook page on Friday.

The senator was responding to rebuttals by the president’s office and the police of a report by Human Rights Watch, which on Thursday challenged official accounts that thousands of killings during police operations were in self-defense.

The New York-based group said Duterte had turned a blind eye to murders by police in a “campaign of extrajudicial execution”. The president’s spokesman said the allegations, without proof, were “hearsay”.

De Lima, who is charged with facilitating drug trades in jails when she was justice minister, said the denial of state-sponsored killings and demands for proof were insults to people’s intelligence.

“Stop fooling our people and the rest of the world,” said the senator, who last week described Duterte as a “sociopathic serial killer”.

Duterte’s chief lawyer, Salvadore Panelo, said De Lima was deluded and should realize an overwhelming number of Filipinos wanted her behind bars.

“She should instead write to herself and tell herself to stop fooling herself and the people,” he posted on social network Twitter.

“She should accept reality and the truth that she created the rut she is now in.”

About 8,000 people have died since the drugs crackdown was launched in June last year, 2,555 in raids and sting operations where police said they had encountered violent resistance.

Many of the other deaths are under investigation and rights groups believe most were summary executions of drugs users, with police complicity. The authorities reject that view and blame vigilantes or inter-gang rivalry.

Duterte told reporters on Friday that his promises to kill were a warning unheeded by drug pushers, who could stop the bloodshed if they quit selling the methamphetamine “shabu”.

“Is it bad to say I will kill people for my country? It’s a warning actually to stop,” he said.

“If you stop taking shabu tonight, tomorrow I can assure no more killings connected with drugs.”

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Martin Petty and Toby Davis)

Out of the shadows: Manila’s meth dealers back on the streets as cops pull back

A man prepares to use "Shabu", or methamphetamine, inside a drug den in Manila, Philippines February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Clare Baldwin and Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs had until three weeks ago driven the trade in crystal methamphetamine underground, according to residents and drug users in some of the slum areas of the nation’s capital city.

As thousands of users and dealers were shot dead by police and vigilantes in the first seven months after Duterte came to power last June, open dealing in the drug, known here by its street name shabu, largely stopped. Instead, deals were done on the quiet between people who knew each other, maybe with a text message first.

But since Duterte ordered the Philippine National Police(PNP) to stand down from the drugs war last month, after declaring the force “rotten to the core”, the drugs trade has come back out of the shadows, more than half a dozen drug users and dealers in some of Manila’s toughest areas said in interviews. Many spoke on condition that only their first names be used in this story.

Beside one of the less-used railroad tracks in Manila – a grassy area scattered with human excrement only a few miles from the gleaming high-rises of the Makati business district – shabu was easily available last week, costing just a few pesos (cents) per hit. Residents said that when they traveled on the illegal trolleys that ferry people for a few pesos along the track when there are no trains in sight, a fellow passenger will often offer them a sachet of the drug.

Eusebio, 52, who pushes a wood and bamboo trolley on the track for a living, said dealers sometimes walk alongside calling out: “How much are you going to buy?”

“Now that the operations have been suspended, drugs have become rampant again,” he said. “Those who were hiding have resurfaced.”Another trolley-pusher, Boyser, 59, told two Reuters journalists: “If you weren’t reporters, they would offer you drugs.”

DRUG DEN

In a dark cinderblock room that serves as a drug den in another part of Manila, there were similar stories from users.

“We have more freedom now,” Jason, a 39-year-old bartender told a visiting reporter as he inhaled shabu smoke.  “All the users are still users, except those who have been killed,” he said, adding that he has used shabu for almost two decades.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since Duterte was sworn in almost eight months ago, about 2,500 of whom were killed in official police anti-narcotics operations. Human rights groups believe many of the others were extra-judicial executions committed as part of the war on drugs, and in cooperation with the police – a claim the Duterte administration has vehemently denied.

The president’s office did not respond to a list of emailed questions about the drugs war and whether dealers were now openly back on the streets.

Duterte has repeatedly said he will hunt down drug lords and other “high value” targets and to date, there have been a handful of large-scale seizures and raids on shabu laboratories. But most of those killed in the war on drugs have been small-time dealers and users in some of the country’s poorest neighborhoods.

The PNP stopped publishing an official tally of drug war killings from police operations on Jan. 31 when Duterte ordered the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to take over the campaign.

FEWER KILLINGS

According to reporters and photographers from Reuters and Philippine news organizations working the crime beat on the night shift, “vigilante-style” killings of drug suspects have continued, but at a much slower pace. Police data shows 398 people were killed nationwide in the first 20 days of February. Details of the killings were not provided and it was unclear how many were drug-related.

Some anti-narcotics experts say they will not be surprised if it turns out that the drugs war has been ineffective. They say that ruthless operations against drugs, like Duterte’s, have failed elsewhere in the world.

Colombia’s former president, César Gaviria, said in a New York Times column earlier this month that his country’s long war on drugs not only failed to eradicate drug production, trafficking and consumption but also pushed drugs and crime into neighboring countries, while “tens of thousands of people were slaughtered.”

Thailand launched a “war on drugs” in 2003 that killed about 2,800 people in three months. But figures show it had no lasting impact on meth supply or demand in Thailand. “The world has lost the war on drugs, not only Thailand,” the country’s then Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya told Reuters last July.

When an aggressive anti-drugs campaign begins, supplies may be tight for a while, street prices may spike, but ultimately drug usage does not drop, say those who have studied the results.

“We don’t know of any examples from around the world where very hardline approaches have worked effectively,” said Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.  “They can temporarily disrupt street business, but they don’t disrupt demand.”

LOST MOMENTUM

Some police officers told Reuters that they had received reports of increased street-level drug activity since they were ordered to stand down.

Manila Police Commander Olivia Sagaysay, who oversees four precincts in the city, said the war on drugs had lost momentum and morale among her officers had suffered since they were ordered to stand down.

“It’s depressing,” she said. “But who are we not to follow the higher-ups?”

She said she expected the trade to increase but maybe not return to its previous levels because “networks were disrupted” and “pushers were killed.”

In a written response to questions from Reuters about the impact of Duterte’s campaign on the street-level shabu trade, the PDEA said that “based on reports gathered, the supply of illegal drugs in some areas are still considerably abundant.”

The PDEA attributed low street prices for shabu – prices overall have risen only minimally since the war on drugs began and in some areas have fallen – to a “lack of customers” or drug traffickers trying to get rid of their supply “in order to avoid arrest.” It said drugs were being hoarded and that it was difficult for users to transact directly with traffickers. The PDEA did not provide evidence for any of its assessments.

PNP spokesman Dionardo Carlos said drugs would return to the streets because it was “a billion peso business” and “money talks”.

In his view, though, the drug war had not failed. “We hit the target and now it goes back to PDEA.  As far as the PNP is concerned we did our part in the past 7 months. I hope PDEA will be able to do their part.”

The PDEA has just about 1,800 people on its rolls compared with the national police force of 160,000. Of the existing PDEA personnel, only about half are field operatives.

PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon said his agency will add staff and that the president would soon be issuing an executive order to set up an anti-illegal drugs inter-agency council and task force that would also draw from the military, the National Bureau of Investigation and the PNP. The task force will be charged with pursuing the war on drugs.

“There is a temporary vacuum of warm bodies but it won’t be long,” Carreon said, adding that those involved in the drug trade would be wrong to think they were safe.

“If that’s their perception, it won’t last long,” he said. “They will find out in the hardest way that they are terribly wrong.”

“GO AFTER COOKERS”

Still, Jason, the bartender who is a shabu user, said Duterte’s campaign was not successful because he targeted the wrong people.

If authorities had gone after the “cookers”, the people manufacturing the drugs, instead of users and small dealers, people like him would be unable to buy and would move on. As it is, Jason said, shabu is always in plentiful supply, adding he was addicted and the drug eliminated any fear he may have had of being shot by police or vigilantes.

As he spoke, Jason poured white crystals into a long strip of aluminum foil folded into a trough, tilted it slightly and held a flame below. Almost immediately, it produced a thick white smoke, which he sucked up through a narrow aluminum foil straw.

He then began speaking again, more animatedly. “I buy drugs every day!” he said.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Neil Jerome Morales; Additional reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Erik De Castro; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Martin Howell)

Philippine senator urges Cabinet to stop ‘sociopathic serial killer’ Duterte

Philippine Senator Leila de Lima gestures during a news conference at the Senate headquarters in Pasay city, metro Manila, Philippines September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

MANILA (Reuters) – A staunch critic of Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday urged the Cabinet to declare the president unfit to rule, describing him as a “sociopathic serial killer” because of his war on drugs and allegations he once ran a hit squad.

Senator Leila de Lima, one of the few high-profile critics of Duterte’s crackdown, said Filipinos should rise up and Cabinet ministers had the duty to save the country from a president “of criminal thinking”.

De Lima is facing arrest on charges of involvement in the drugs trade, which she says are a vendetta for her leading a Senate investigation of allegations that Duterte had ordered unlawful killings of criminals while mayor of Davao City.

Duterte denied unlawful killings and the Senate investigation found no evidence to prove that.

She said new allegations made on Monday by a retired policeman, Arturo Lascanas, that Duterte had operated a “Davao death squad” should clear up any uncertainty.

Duterte’s lawyer and his spokesmen have rejected Lascanas’ claims.

“With the coming out of Lascanas, there’s no more doubt that our president is a murderer and a sociopathic serial killer,” De Lima told reporters.

“I will not retreat from this fight now that I know I am not alone. We are plenty already, so they should be scared. I call on all our countrymen that have yet to act, to hold responsible the murderer president of the country.”

The war on drugs has broad public support despite the killing of more than 7,700 people since Duterte took office on June 30, about 2,500 in police operations.

The cause of other deaths are much in dispute, attributed by police to vigilantism, turf wars, or everyday murders unrelated to drugs. Activists are convinced many are extrajudicial killings, carried out by police or with their encouragement.

Asked at a regular news briefing about De Lima’s remarks, Duterte’s spokesman, Ernesto Abella, said: “That’s colourful language”.

De Lima and several associates were last week charged in drug-related cases, based on the testimony of convicts and former prison officials at last year’s congressional inquiry on the drug trade in jails.

She has yet to be arrested and has filed a motion to quash the charges on the grounds the court had no jurisdiction.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Russia to share intelligence with Philippines, train Duterte guards

Vladimir Putin and Duterte

MANILA (Reuters) – Russia’s top security official on Thursday offered the Philippines access to an intelligence database to help it fight crime and militancy, and training for the elite forces assigned to protect President Rodrigo Duterte.

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and Vladimir Putin’s top security adviser, made the offer during a meeting between Russian and Philippine security officials in Davao, where he was visiting Duterte at his home city.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the Russia had invited the Philippines to join a database-sharing system to help combat trans-national crime and terrorism, which he said could help track Islamist militants and their financial transactions.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Lorenzana said there were “very strong” links between Islamic State and militants in the Philippines.

Patrushev’s trip underlines Russia’s intent to capitalize on a radical recalibration of foreign policy under Duterte, who harbors resentment of the Philippines’ deep-rooted ties to the United States.

Duterte has made strong overtures towards China and Russia.

He praised Putin’s leadership when he met him at an international summit late last year. He also he talked at length to Putin about what he called U.S. “hypocrisy”.

Lorenzana said security officials from both sides also discussed law enforcement cooperation, including anti-piracy and anti-narcotics exercises by coastguard and police.

The two countries were working on a military technical cooperation agreement, he said, and Russia offered to provide enhanced training for troops protecting Duterte.

Duterte will visit Moscow in May.

“We are keen on signing a defense cooperation agreement,” Lorenzana said of that trip.

Lorenzana said last week Russia was interested in selling military equipment to the Philippines, like drones, helicopters, rifles and submarines.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty)

Duterte targets Philippine children in bid to widen drug war

boys undergoing drug rehabilitation in Philippines

By Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall

MANILA (Reuters) – Before Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs had even begun, allies of the Philippines president were quietly preparing for a wider offensive. On June 30, as Duterte was sworn in, they introduced a bill into the Philippine Congress that could allow children as young as nine to be targeted in a crackdown that has since claimed more than 7,600 lives.

The bill proposes to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9 years old to prevent what it calls “the pampering of youthful offenders who commit crimes knowing they can get away with it.”

“You can ask any policeman or anyone connected with the law enforcement: We produce a generation of criminals,” Duterte said in a speech in Manila on December 12. Young children, he said, were becoming drug runners, thieves and rapists, and must be “taught to understand responsibility.”

The move to target children signals Duterte’s determination to intensify his drug war, which faces outrage abroad and growing unease at home. The president’s allies say his support in Congress will ensure the bill passes the House of Representatives by June.

The House would approve the bill “within six months,” said Fredenil Castro, who co-authored the legislation with the speaker of the House, Pantaleon Alvarez. It might face opposition in the Senate, but would prevail because of Duterte’s allies there, added Castro.

National police chief Ronald Dela Rosa recently announced that he was suspending anti-narcotics operations, which have killed more than 2,500 people, while the force rids itself of corrupt cops. The announcement came after it emerged last month that drug squad officers had killed a South Korean businessman at national police headquarters.

The killing of drug suspects has continued, albeit at a slower pace, with most following the pattern of killings that police have blamed on vigilantes. Human rights monitors believe vigilantes have killed several thousand people and operate in league with the police – a charge the police deny.

Duterte has signaled he intends to continue his drug war. In late January, he said the campaign would run until his presidency ends in 2022.

‘IN CAHOOTS WITH DRUG USERS’

Lowering the age of criminality was justified, Castro told Reuters, because many children were “in cahoots with drug users, with drug pushers, and others who are related to the drug trade.” He said he based his support for the bill on what he saw from his car and at churches – children begging and pickpocketing. “For me, there isn’t any evidence more convincing than what I see in every day of my life,” he said.

A controversial bill to restore the death penalty, another presidential priority, is also expected to pass the House of Representatives by mid-year, according to Duterte allies in Congress.

Supporters of the bill to lower the age of criminality say holding young children liable will discourage drug traffickers from exploiting them. Opponents, including opposition lawmakers and human rights groups, are appalled at a move they say will harm children without evidence it will reduce crime.

There is also resistance inside Duterte’s administration. A member of Duterte’s cabinet who heads the Department of Social Welfare and Development opposes the move. And a branch of the police responsible for protecting women and children disputes the claim that children are heavily involved in the drug trade – a claim not supported by official data.

Opponents warn that lowering the age of criminality would further strain a juvenile justice system that is struggling to cope. At worst, they say, with a drug war raging nationwide, the bill could legitimize the killing of minors.

“What will stop them from targeting children?” said Karina Teh, a local politician and child rights advocate in Manila. “They are using the war on drugs to criminalize children.”

IN THE FIRING LINE

The drug-war death toll includes at least 29 minors who were either shot by unidentified gunmen or accidentally killed during police operations from July to November 2016, according to the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center (CLRDC) and the Network Against Killings in the Philippines, both Manila-based advocacy groups.

Dela Rosa said the Philippine National Police “fully supports” the new bill. It is “true and supported by data” that minors are used by drug traffickers because they can’t be held criminally liable, the police chief said in a submission to the House of Representatives.

Some police officers working on the streets agree with Dela Rosa. In Manila’s slums, children as young as six act as lookouts for dealers, shouting “The enemy is coming!” when police approach, said Cecilio Tomas, an anti-narcotics officer in the city. By their early teens, some become delivery boys and then dealers and users, said Tomas.

Salvador Panelo, Duterte’s chief legal counsel, said the bill would protect children by stopping criminals from recruiting them. “They will not become targets simply because they will no longer be involved,” he said.

Child rights experts say the legislation could put children in the firing line. They point to the deadly precedent set in the southern city of Davao, where Duterte pioneered his hard-line tactics as mayor. The Coalition Against Summary Execution, a Davao-based rights watchdog, documented 1,424 vigilante-style killings in the city between 1998 and 2015. Of those victims, 132 were 17 or younger.

For all but three years during that period, Duterte was either Davao’s mayor or vice-mayor. He denied any involvement in the killings.

CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE

Althea Barbon was one of the children killed in the current nationwide drug war. The four year old was fatally wounded in August when police in an anti-narcotics operation shot at her father, the two Manila-based advocacy groups said. Unidentified gunmen shot dead Ericka Fernandez, 17, in a Manila alley on October 26, police said. Her bloody Barbie doll was collected as evidence. And on December 28, three boys, aged 15 or 16, were killed in Manila by what police said were motorbike-riding gunmen.

If the bill passes, the Philippines won’t be the only country where the age of criminality is low. In countries including England, Northern Ireland and Switzerland it is 10, according to the website of the Child Rights International Network, a research and advocacy group. In Scotland, children as young as eight can be held criminally responsible, but the government is in the process of raising the age limit to 12.

Critics of the Philippines’ bill say lower age limits are largely found in countries where the legal systems, detention facilities and rehabilitation programs are more developed.

Statistics from the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the government’s top anti-narcotics body, appear to contradict the Duterte camp’s claim that there is a large number of young children deeply involved in the drug trade.

There were 24,000 minors among the 800,000 drug users and dealers who had registered with the authorities by November 30, according to police statistics. But less than two percent of those minors, or about 400 children, were delivering or selling drugs. Only 12 percent, or 2,815, were aged 15 or younger. Most of the 24,000 minors were listed as drug users.

The number of minors involved in the drug trade is “just a small portion,” said Noel Sandoval, deputy head of the Women and Children’s Protection Center (WCPC), the police department that compiled the data.

The WCPC is not pushing to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility, said Sandoval, but if the age is to be lowered, his department recommends a minimum age of 12, not 9.

Between January 2011 and July 2016, 956 children aged six to 17 were “rescued nationwide from illegal drug activity,” according to PDEA. They were mostly involved with marijuana and crystal methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug also known as shabu, and were handed over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Of these, only 80 were under the age of 15.

MORE DETENTIONS

Asked for evidence that younger children are involved in the drug trade, Duterte’s legal counsel Panelo said the president had data from “all intelligence agencies.” Panelo declined to disclose those numbers.

Among the opponents of the bill is a member of Duterte’s cabinet, Judy Taguiwalo, secretary of the DSWD. The legislation runs counter to scientific knowledge about child development and would result not in lower crime rates but in more children being detained, Taguiwalo wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives in October.

Hidden by a high wall topped with metal spikes, the Valenzuela youth detention center in northern Manila is already operating at twice its capacity. Its 89 boys eat meals in shifts – the canteen can’t hold them all at once – and sleep on mats that spill out of the spartan dorms and into the hallways.

The government-run center, which currently houses boys aged 13 to 17 for up to a year, is considered a model facility in the Philippines. Even so, said Lourdes Gardoce, a social worker at the Valenzuela home, “It’s a big adjustment on our part if we have to cater to kids as young as nine.”

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall. Edited by David Lague and Peter Hirschberg.)

Duterte pleads with Philippine rebels to rebuff Islamic State advances

Philippine President Duterte

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday pleaded with the country’s Muslim separatist groups to deny sanctuary to militants with links to Islamic State, warning a war would ensue that would put civilians in danger.

His appeal comes a day after his defense minister said foreign intelligence reports showed a leader of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group was getting instructions from Islamic State to expand in the Philippines, in the strongest sign yet of links to the Middle Eastern militants.

Duterte said he could no longer contain the extremist “contamination” and urged two Muslim separatist rebels groups – the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front – to rebuff Islamic State’s advances.

“I am earnestly asking, I am pleading to the MNLF and the MILF, do not provide sanctuary to the terrorists in your areas,” he told troops at a military camp in Mindanao, his home region.

“Because if that happens, then we will be forced to go after them within your territory, and that could mean trouble for all of us. I don’t want that to happen.

“The government is going after them, they have done wrong, they killed a lot of innocent people.”

The south of the predominately Christian Philippines has for decades been a hotbed of Muslim insurgency but Duterte is worried some smaller groups and splinter factions that have pledged allegiance to Islamic State could host IS fighters being driven out of Iraq and Syria.

They include the Maute group in Lanao del Sur province and the Abu Sayyaf in the Sulu Archipelago near Malaysia.

Abu Sayyaf, which means “bearer of the sword”, is notorious for piracy and kidnapping and for beheading foreign hostages for whom ransoms are not paid.

It has used the Islamic State flag in hostage videos posted online.

(Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)