DUTERTE ORDERS REARREST OF SUSPECT IN GRUESOME KILLING

President Duterte on Tuesday night admitted that he had ordered the rearrest of the suspect in the killing of 16-yearold Christine Silawan, who was released after his case was dismissed due to a technicality.

Silawan, a Grade 9 student at Maribago High School, was found dead in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, on March 11, with her face skinned down to her skull.

Speaking at a political rally in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, the President said he called the Cebu prosecutor a day after the release of the 17year-old suspect last week from the Home Care facility of the City Social Welfare Office in Lapu-Lapu.

“I told him to recall the order of dismissal and have the guy arrested,” Mr. Duterte said.

On Friday, the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office ordered the release of the teenage suspect because the arrest by the National Bureau of Investigation was done without a warrant.

Having been a trial prosecutor for nine years, Mr. Duterte said he knew the “pain of seeing a case dismissed (on) a mere technicality.”

In his speech, the President said the arrest of the suspect was based on the hot pursuit theory in the Spanish-era penal code which, he said, no longer works now.

A hot pursuit done by law enforcers after a suspect commits a crime should be continuous until the suspect is arrested, he added.

“How can you make a continuous pursuit if the suspect rides an airplane and the police could not?” Mr. Duterte said, adding that he does not agree that a suspect arrested after six days should be released because this was not hot pursuit.

“For as long as there is somebody who conducted an investigation and made a follow-up every day, that is still hot pursuit to me,” he added.