Executed for Drug Trafficking

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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby junglist on Thu Oct 06, 2016 2:03 pm

It won't matter. Media will still take his words out of context for their agendas. He's already mentioned that police officers are not supposed to kill drug dealers, unless they provide resistance and the officer's life is under threat. In spite of this, the media still spins it as though he is telling police officers to kill drug dealers, which is why you have people like Greg over there parroting whatever the biased media has to spin.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Thu Oct 06, 2016 2:55 pm

I love the last line.

‘Go ahead, withdraw your assistance’: Philippines' Duterte dares US, EU

Publicado: 6 Oct 2016 | 17:44 GMT

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte © Romeo Ranoco
Reuters

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declares he will not bow to foreign pressure over his anti-drug campaign, while Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay declared that the US “has failed us.”

“I do not expect the human rights [groups], I do not expect Obama, I do not expect the EU to understand me,” said Duterte in a speech on Thursday. “Do not understand me. And if you think it’s high time for you guys to withdraw your assistance, go ahead. We will not beg for it.”

Duterte’s remark was made in response to mounting US and EU criticism of his war on drugs, which has led to over 3,600 deaths at the hands of police, drug gangs, and vigilantes, according to the latest figures from the Philippine National Police (PNP). Certain politicians, such as US Senator Patrick Leahy, suggested cutting off aid to the Philippines in September, but Duterte maintains that foreigners simply do not understand the scale of the drug problem in his country.

“You will never understand the pain that we are suffering,” he said. “Go away, bring your money somewhere else. We will survive as a nation. There will always be a day for reckoning.”

These latest comments fit in with the rhetoric Duterte has become famous for since taking office. On Tuesday, he told Barack Obama, whom he has previously called a “son-of-a-b***h,” to “go to hell,” and the Philippines’ president called for a withdrawal of US troops in September.

Meanwhile, Duterte’s foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay, who has at times tried to downplay his boss’s comments, released a statement on Facebook titled “America has failed us” in which he says that, while there are many “countless things that we will be forever grateful to America for,” the US has never fully respected Philippine independence.

“After proclaiming in July 4, 1946 that the Filipinos had been adequately trained for self-determination and governance, the United States held on to invisible chains that reined us in towards dependency and submission as little brown brothers not capable of true independence and freedom,” the FM said in the statement.

The United States “give us the assurance” that it will come to the Philippines’ defense if its sovereignty is threatened, and that is why Duterte has set about “realigning our independent foreign policy,” the statement added.

However, this does not necessarily mean that Duterte wants to sever ties with the US, as Yasay also said that the Philippines will not pursue a military alliance with any country other than the United States.

“The President in many occasions has said categorically that he will only have one military alliance, and our only ally in that respect is the US,” he said before a Senate committee on Thursday.

There seems to be some differences of opinion within the Duterte administration about how to interpret the president’s remarks. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana earlier said that he thought Duterte had been “misinformed” about the nature of the US-Philippines alliance, while spokesman Ernesto Abella said that many of the president’s statements are “expressions of frustration” that should not be taken literally, the Philippine Star reported on Thursday.

American officials, for their part, have tried to shrug off Duterte’s outbursts. A State Department official told the LA Times, “we are not going to respond to every little thing said in Tagalog somewhere in the Philippines.”



From RT.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby Mr_Wood on Thu Oct 06, 2016 3:00 pm

a filipino / swiss friend told me this today,

Haha i just arrived in the philippines today, and yeah as it seems few things are quite fucked up, but thers alot of development now about the traffic situation of manila, and against corrupt politicians and oligarchs ,it has good things going on and some pretty dark stuff..its as extreme as the philippines are... I was telling a friend today that they shud take the mic away from him, bc hes publicity is pretty too crazy...


I guess with less people there are less cars on the road.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Thu Oct 06, 2016 11:53 pm

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSKCN127049

Reuters

Thu Oct 6, 2016 | 11:03 PM EDT

Special Report: In Duterte's war on drugs, local residents help draw up hit lists

By Andrew R.C. Marshall and John Chalmers | MANILA

There are two versions of how Manila pedicab driver Neptali Celestino died.

According to Philippines police, he shot at plainclothes officers during a sting operation on Sept. 12, and they returned fire. His family says police burst into their ramshackle home, cornered an unarmed Celestino and shot him in front of his teenage sons.

Whatever the case, Celestino's days seem to have been numbered. His name had appeared on a police "watch list" of drug suspects drawn up with the help of community leaders and other people who lived alongside him in Palatiw, a frenetic, traffic-choked area on the eastern side of the nation's capital.

The local officials who help cops draw up these lists are foot soldiers in a war on drugs that has led to the killing of more than 3,600 people since President Rodrigo Duterte took office on June 30.

Most of the 1,377 people shot by the police had appeared on the lists, according to national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa. It was unclear how many of the remaining 2,275 victims, who human rights activists suspect were mostly killed by vigilantes, were on the lists.

The campaign draws its momentum from President Duterte: Last Friday, he seemed to compare himself to Hitler and said he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts in the Philippines. But the campaign's efficiency depends on the lowliest officials in the country's barangays - its districts and villages.

"They are on the forefront of this fight," Dela Rosa told Reuters. "They can identify the drug users and pushers in their barangays. They know everyone."

MOTORBIKE-RIDING ASSASSINS

Interviews with local police, residents and barangay officials reveal the mechanics of an anti-drugs crusade that the popular Duterte has vowed to wage until next June in the face of global condemnation.

Barangay leaders, known as "captains", have been instrumental in drawing up the lists, say police.

Maricar Asilo Vivero is the captain of Pinagbuhatan, a Manila barangay with about 145,000 people, and says she is an enthusiastic supporter of Duterte's campaign.

"The war on drugs is good," she said. "It lowers crime. It identifies those who want to change."

The night before, said Vivero, motorbike-riding assassins killed two men who had been named as pushers on the barangay's watch list. Vivero said she sympathized with the victims' families but didn't feel responsible for the deaths.

People weren't included on the watch list with "the objective of killing them, or asking the police or authorities to kill them," she said. "Our objective is to guide them, to direct their lives to the better - not to kill."

Asked if people named on the watch list were more likely to get killed, Vivero replied: "No, I don't think so."

There were 323 suspected users and dealers on Pinagbuhatan's watch list, according to a computer print-out seen by Reuters. It had been swelled by people who had gone to the barangay office to admit to police they were users, a process known as "surrendering".

OFTEN A FAMILY AFFAIR

The origins of the barangay system predate the arrival of Spanish colonisers in the 16th century. In Manila, a barangay can consist of just two densely populated streets; in the countryside, it can sprawl for miles.

Each has a barangay captain and six kagawad, or councillors, who are elected in polls often dogged by allegations of corruption. And as with more senior posts in the Philippines, the barangay captaincy often passes between members of the same family.

The barangay office sits at the heart of the community and, on any given day, its hallways are clogged with people seeking so-called "clearances." These are certificates, signed by the captain, for people needing to establish residency, set up a business, apply for a job or enroll a child at a local school.

Barangay captains routinely attend the weddings, baptisms and funerals of constituents, and even victims of serious crimes will sometimes report to them first rather than the police.

"They trust us more and get an immediate response," said Eriberto Guevarra, who for 11 years was captain of Palatiw.

His wife Dinah now occupies the position, while Eriberto works at her side as a self-styled "peace and order czar".

"DRUG PERSONALITIES"

The Barangay Anti-Drug Action Committees (BADACs) play a key role in helping the police identify alleged drug dealers and users in each district.

Each BADAC's 6-10 members are chosen by the barangay captain, who also chairs the committee. They might be teachers, church workers, youth leaders or members of other civil society groups.

Each BADAC provides the names of what police term "drug personalities", meaning suspected users or dealers, most of them small-time. Police say they then "validate" these names in consultation with national anti-narcotics and intelligence officials. They also add names of their own.

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First created by the government in 1998, BADACs were meant to convene every month, but for years many did little or existed only on paper. Duterte not only revived the BADACs, he made them the lynchpin of his war on drugs.

Duterte pioneered the nationwide campaign in the southern city of Davao, where he was mayor for 22 years.

There, barangay leaders and police compiled similar lists that were used by death squads to assassinate hundreds of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals and street children, said Human Rights Watch in a 2009 report. Duterte denied any involvement in the killings.

"A GRUDGE AND A GUN"

Officials say the watch lists are not arbitrary hit lists.

Metro Manila's list of 11,700 users and dealers has been "validated and revalidated by intelligence", said Kimberley Molitas, police spokeswoman for a region that has seen more than a quarter of the drug-war deaths.

Human rights monitors and some officials counter that the process is open to abuse.

Lists have included the names of people "who are not even drug users, never mind pushers," said Karen Gomez-Dumpit, a commissioner at the Philippines' Commission on Human Rights.

"It's an environment conducive to someone with a grudge and a gun to hunt you down," she said.

In one high-profile case, the bullet-riddled body of Mark Culata was found in Cavite, a province south of Manila, on Sept. 9. It bore a placard identifying him as a drug dealer.

Culata's mother Eva told local media that her 27-year-old son had nothing to do with drugs and had been heading overseas to start a job. Police told Reuters in a statement that investigators were considering the "illegal drug trade and love triangle" as a possible motive.

Four officers involved in the case have been moved to administrative positions pending an investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippines equivalent of the FBI. Culata's death was raised as a possible extrajudicial killing in a Philippines Senate hearing on Oct. 3.

Police told Reuters that watch lists are confidential. But so-called "knock and plead" operations, in which police visit drug suspects at their homes and urge them to mend their ways, means inclusion on a list is often public knowledge.

Drug pushers and users are also urged to "surrender" to the police at barangay meetings that are, again, public. Their names are added to the watch list.

The process resembles a mass arrest. The so-called "surrenderers" are questioned by police, who ask for details of their dealers and fellow users. This information can be used to identify other drug suspects, police said. The names of surrenderers are later added to a national database so they can be watched even if they move to another barangay.

After the questioning, the users are fingerprinted and pose for a mugshot holding a whiteboard bearing their name and that day's date. Raising their right hands, they then swear to stay away from drugs and support "the government and the police in their noble campaign."

In the following weeks, said barangay captain Vivero, surrenderers are expected to do community service such as painting walls, unclogging sewers or picking up trash.

INTENDED TO CHANGE

Former barangay leader Eriberto Guevarra said he tried to avert the killing of pedicab driver Celestino. The dead man, Guevarra said, was just a small-time dealer and user, not the "notorious pusher" police dubbed him.

"He was endangered because he was on the watch list," he said.

Guevarra said he had warned Celestino to stop dealing and using drugs. Three days before his death Celestino had attended a three-hour "drug awareness" seminar run by police and barangay officials.

"It was his intention to change," said Guevarra.

John Patrick Celestino, 17, one of Celestino's four children, trembled as he recalled the night his father died.

The dogs began barking at about 9 p.m. There were armed men at the door who showed John Patrick a photo on a cellphone. "Is this your father?" they demanded.

When he said it was, according to John Patrick, the men rushed upstairs and kicked open the door to a small room where Celestino was hiding.

John Patrick, who had followed them to the room, said: "The men kept shouting, 'Where's the shabu?' Where's the shabu?'" referring to the local name for crystal methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug widely available in the Philippines.

He told them his father was unarmed and begged them not to shoot. But one gunman fired three rounds into the room, and the teenager heard his father gasp with pain.

The gunman then ordered John Patrick to flee. As he ran downstairs, he heard five more shots.

Police said they found a .22 revolver and three sachets of shabu on Celestino. His wife Zandey, 38, denies this was the case.

"My husband had already surrendered, so why did they kill him?" she asked. "Why didn't they give him one more chance?"

Sitting around his coffin, relatives told a Reuters reporter of a long-running feud with another family, who they blamed for telling the police that Celestino was a drug dealer. Reuters was unable to independently verify this claim.

"NEFARIOUS ACTIVITIES"

Celestino was on the watch list as a drug dealer, confirmed Chief Superintendent Romulo Sapitula, director of the Eastern Police District of Manila.

"The information came from the community," he said. "It was given by barangay officials and validated by the police."

The "best information" comes from the neighborhood itself, he added. "Most of the watch lists which came from that place are true and correct."

Celestino's surrender as a drug user didn't put him above suspicion, said Sapitula.

"There are some on the watch list who surrender but continue their nefarious activities," he said. "They pretend to embrace the program, but in reality ... they are still doing their old thing. And there are some who surrender as users when they're really pushers."

Sapitula confirmed the operation was carried out by seven or eight members of the anti-narcotics police. He rejected the family's claim that drugs were planted on Celestino. An internal investigation, he said, had concluded that the police opened fire in self-defense because Celestino had "opted to shoot it out".

Sapitula said family members shouldn't be afraid to file a formal complaint, but only "if they're innocent" and not involved in criminal activities.

The Celestinos told Reuters there was little point appealing to the same people who had killed their relative. Zandey said she feared not only for the safety of her children, but for other members of her extended family who, like Celestino, had "surrendered" to authorities.

Her older son, Cedric, 19, was so traumatized by the killing that he has stopped talking, she said.

"IT WILL BE BLOODY"

Some local leaders plead with the police to spare lives.

In the Manila slum of Tondo, barangay captain Erick Simbiling said two policemen recently told him they had "scheduled to kill" a local man who was a small-time but persistent drug dealer.

"I spoke to the policemen and said, 'Please give him a chance,'" Simbiling said.

He then visited the dealer and urged him to surrender to the authorities. The dealer did so, like hundreds of thousands of others nationwide, and then fled the barangay.

The barangay captains are under pressure from the president himself. Duterte has vowed to publish a list of a thousand elected officials suspected of drug ties. Prominent among them are captains who have connived with terrorists and drug lords, he told reporters on Sept. 18.

But not all barangays have toed the line. Police in central Luzon told Reuters that 31 of the region's 3,100 barangays had not supplied a watch list.

Romeo Caramat, police chief of Bulacan province in central Luzon, said these barangay officials were probably either allied to Duterte's political opponents or bankrolled by drug traffickers.

"Actually, one of the barangay captains who was uncooperative got killed," said Caramat. The man was shot in early August in San Jose Del Monte city by unidentified assassins on a motorbike, he said.

"One barangay chairman runs out of luck!" added Caramat, laughing. He described the man as "a well-known drug pusher and user" who had not included himself on his barangay's watch list.

The dead captain, Damaso Santiago, was a drug user, not a dealer, said his younger brother Arman Santiago. "Anyone you ask, they will say he does not peddle drugs. He was just a victim of drug use," said Arman.

Police chief Caramat described his province's 17,000 drug dealers and users as "a walking time bomb". For him, the death toll in his province is a measure of the campaign's success.

"It will be bloody," he said. "You have a problem with dengue. You think you can solve it without killing mosquitos?"

(Additional reporting by Clare Baldwin, Manuel Mogato and Neil Jerome Morales in Manila; Editing by Martin Howell)

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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby junglist on Fri Oct 07, 2016 12:51 am

Love how the troll completely ignores what I say.

There's no medicine for trollpidity as they say.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby Steve James on Fri Oct 07, 2016 6:15 am

Well, just an observation. As in most cases when a group identifies others (foreigners, outsiders) as the cause of their problems, the inevitable result has been that it ends up with the group killing each other. If the problem in the Philippines is Mexican and Chinese drug traffickers, they should be the primary victims. Leaving aside how that should happen, it seems to me that people are turning against each other: i.e., in this case, Filipinos are killing Filipinos. This isn't unique, though. It is, in fact, the pattern everywhere, even in the good 'ol USA. The suggestion, of course, is that that is the last thing that should happen. That, imo, is what leaders are for, and what they try to do.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 07, 2016 11:39 am

This is probably the most informative information I have seen on the subject of "Duterte going after the cartels." It doesn't seem very organized at least in terms of these lists and is set up in a way where those of top can deny any connection to the killings.

I also get why Duterte sends out so many mixed signals.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 07, 2016 12:19 pm

Essentially he wants to take credit but be free of prosecution from a world court.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby windwalker on Fri Oct 07, 2016 1:01 pm

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 7254475167

an interesting view point...

The link was suggested by one of my American Filipino co workers, who grew up in the Philippians
emigrated here later in life and still maintains close family ties with his relatives there.

I had mentioned some of the points here, he basically said that it would be hard for anyone who was not really living
there to understand whats really going on, and suggested a couple of links, one of them posted

He echoed much if not all of "junglist" points and was very strong in condemnation of the news
media being a big part of the problem


I had asked about the many deaths, he explained it in a way
that makes it sound logical....something to be expected.....

Also echoing "junglist" points

My main take away : The Philippians have had many presidents,
some good some bad but most never really addressed the corruption
within the system as he is doing.
Last edited by windwalker on Fri Oct 07, 2016 3:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby Mr_Wood on Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:11 pm

yeah im beginning to get the impression that the fight for power there is a very tough one and this is probably the only way to tackle it, corruption there is off the charts. Going after the chinese and the mexicans is a good point but if there is no demand for the drugs then you would imagine the dealers will go elsewhere.

there are always casualties in war and this is a war on drugs after all.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby Steve James on Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:32 pm

I understand the anger at those who spread drugs and the corrupt politicians who aid them. I just see drug addicts as the victims. Sure, I have heard that there are appeals made to them to give up drug use. I'm not there, so I don't if even one of them has been murdered for not giving up drugs. So, I stay out of that argument. All I know is that if the numbers of drug addicts that have been killed is true, it's a human tragedy. Afa cleaning up the political situation, that sounds fine. Getting rid of US military bases is fine too.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:44 pm

FWIW most of my information comes from Filipinos both here and there. I then use journalists to figure what it factual and what is not. I've heard untruths on both sides.

But I would say that there are those in the Philippines who are not happy with Duterte including the Filipino military who don't agree with the direction Duterte is taking them into. Those I know involved with the Military see the US as an ally and the Chinese as a threat.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby junglist on Fri Oct 07, 2016 5:19 pm

Wouldn't know truth if it fajin'd him in the face lawl.
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:27 pm

Interesting perspective from RT they seem surprised that the US is still there.

https://www.rt.com/news/360574-us-phili ... y-duterte/
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Re: Executed for Drug Trafficking

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:38 pm

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... t-in-ranks



Duterte’s outreach to the military is drawing attention in a country where coup rumors come as regularly as monsoon rains, with political opponents warning of the risk of discontent in an army with deep-rooted links to main security ally the U.S. Ties between the nation’s civilian and military leaders, long a source of conflict, are key to prolonging a period of political stability that has made the Philippines one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies.
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