Senator Richard J. Gordon on Tuesday, March 9 warned that misinterpretations of the recent “Kill, kill, kill” order of President Duterte might lead to disastrous consequences.
Gordon then called upon his fellow senators to act on recent cases of activist crackdowns and killings of government officials.
Malacañang said the President’s order is legal.
Gordon said that two masked assailants last week brutally stabbed ‘’red-tagged’’ human rights lawyer Angelo Karlo Guillen.
The President on Friday told his uniformed officials to “ignore human rights” and “kill” enemies right away.
Gordon recalled that the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) launched joint operations in the Calabarzon region that killed nine activists and detained six, on what critics call “Bloody Sunday.”
A day later Calbayog City, Samar Mayor Ronaldo Aquino and five others died in an encounter initially reported as an ambush, but the police later claimed a “shootout.
“The danger there is that when Malacañang says “kill, kill, kill” order is legal, we cannot leave it upon our armed men on the ground to make a determination that the President does not mean it. That would lead to consequences that will be deadly. Because, after all, everybody knows that the President is the commander-in-chief,” Gordon said.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, the chairman of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security committee, earlier said that the President does not really mean such “shoot to kill” orders, and that it is up to the officers on ground to “interpret soundly or with discretion.”
Former PNP Chief and Senator Ronald dela Rosa also came to the President’s defense, saying, that his hyperboles were only meant to give emphasis to his orders and to indicate he really means business.
“He’s prone to hyperbole, but at the same time, that hyperbole can go up into hyper disasters,” Gordon remarked.
He also warned against letting these crimes and killings go unsolved.
‘’We cannot allow us to go into that slippery slope and lose our democratic principles that are there to preserve life and property within the rule of law,’’ he added.