Since then, the case of the vigilante killings in Davao City has snowballed. In February 2009, Davao City set a sad record. 80 people were murdered. The highest death toll in the shortest month of the year... The Commission on Human Rights headed by Attorney Leila De Lima came to Davao City to investigate a presumed connection between Mayor Duterte and the so-called Davao Death Squad. Duterte, as usual, denied the existence of the Davao Death Squad as well as any connections between the city government and the vigilante killings. Something doesn't quite add up, of course. Duterte prides himself in having rid his city of drug-pushers, rapists and murderers, but a gang of killers going about executing those very same criminals without taking the pains of disguising themselves somehow escaped his attention...
Attorney De Lima - who heads the commisision - rightly emphasized that Mayor Duterte is responsible for the killings any which way. Either he orchestrates the killings, in which case he should be put to trial and sent to prison. Or he merely tolerates it, which would make him a felony to serial killing. Or he really is powerless in stopping the Davao Death Squad, which would make him a highly inept mayor. His city, after all, is the murder capital of Mindanao. Not quite the haven of safety he advertises it to be.
Yet, in my personal opinion, there is someting even more disturbing about the whole case. Even if it were true that Duterte has nothing to do with the killings and that his only responsibility lies in his unwillingness or ineptness to stop them, then there is still that one startling fact: the vast majority of the people in Davao City assume that Duterte is behind the Davao Death Squad, and they applaud him for it. You will be hard-pressed to find anyone genuinely shocked about the killings. Even among local NGO people, it is not uncommon to hear people sanction the killings because 'it has made Davao City a safer place for ordinary citizens'. Although I can understand the people, I do think that there is something terribly wrong with an electorate that massively tolerates extra-judicial killings...
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