Pressure mounts on Duterte to quit
CABINET MUST FORCE HIM TO STEP DOWN ON MENTAL HEALTH GROUNDS — DE LIMA
Senator de Lima calls president ‘a serial killer’ and says cabinet must force him to step down on mental health grounds |
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a “serial killer” who should be forced out of office, one of his chief critics said yesterday, as she faced arrest on drug charges, which she insisted were meant to silence her.
Senator Leila de Lima invoked the famous ‘People Power’ revolution that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos three decades ago, in her strongest comments yet against Duterte and his war on drugs that has claimed thousands of lives.
“There is no more doubt that our president is a murderer and sociopathic serial killer,” de Lima told reporters, as she called on Duterte’s cabinet to declare him unfit to lead and urged ordinary Filipinos to voice opposition to his rule.
De Lima said the Constitution allowed for a majority in his cabinet to force him to step down by ruling that he was mentally incapacitated, and urged members to do so.
If they did not, she referred to the mass uprising that in 1986 ended the “iron fist” of Marcos’s dictatorship.
“Now the time has come again for us to be brave and stand up to another criminal dictator and his evil regime,” de Lima said.
‘Joker’
She also compared Duterte to Batman’s foe, the Joker, saying the president was also a “psychotic murderer” who led other villains in committing crimes.
The government last week charged de Lima, a former national human rights commissioner, with orchestrating a drug trafficking ring when she was justice secretary in the previous administration.
Her supporters and rights groups have said the charges against de Lima, 57, are manufactured to silence her as well as intimidate other people who may want to speak out against the president.
“The prosecution of Senator Leila de Lima is an act of political vindictiveness that debases the rule of law in the Philippines,” Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phelim Kine said this week.
“The Duterte administration seems intent on using the courts to punish prominent critics of its murderous ‘war on drugs’.”
De Lima could be detained anytime, although the courts hearing the cases must issue an arrest warrant.
When asked about de Lima’s comments yesterday, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella simply described them as “colourful language” and pointed out that Duterte would allow public demonstrations against him.
Duterte, 71, won the presidential election last year after promising during the campaign to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.