BFF-27 Philippine mayor on Duterte ‘narco’ list shot dead

380

ZCZC

BFF-27

PHILIPPINES-POLITICS-CRIME

Philippine mayor on Duterte ‘narco’ list shot dead

MANILA, Oct 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Philippine mayor tagged by President
Rodrigo Duterte as a “narco-politician” was ambushed while in police custody
and killed Friday, police said, the latest official on the leader’s blacklist
to be targeted by unknown gunmen.

Gunmen stopped a police van that was taking David Navarro, the mayor of
the small southern town of Clarin, to the state prosecutor’s office in the
central city of Cebu and shot him dead, authorities said.

City police had arrested Navarro, who was visiting on official business,
late Thursday after he allegedly assaulted a masseur, a Cebu police officer
who asked not to be named told AFP.

Following the attack, in which one of Navarro’s police escorts was also
injured, the gunmen escaped, police said.

Local television footage showed two women named by the station as the
politician’s siblings crying and hugging a bloodied body sprawled on the road
beside a police van.

The Philippines has a violent and often deadly political culture, but
rights monitors have expressed concern that Duterte’s signature drug war —
which has led to the killings of thousands of narcotics suspects by police —
may be emboldening assailants.

On March 14, ahead of May elections, Navarro’s name had turned up in a
list of 44 mostly local officials put out by Duterte, who accused them of
being “involved in the deadly game of drug trafficking”.

Duterte had also released a longer list in 2016 of more than 150 judges,
mayors and other local officials allegedly linked to drugs.

On that list, Mayor Vicente Loot of the central town of Daanbantayan later
survived a 2018 ambush, while Mayor Jed Mabilog of the central city of Iloilo
went into hiding in 2017.

Two other mayors in the longer list, Rolando Espinosa and Reynaldo
Parojinog, were killed by police in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Espinosa was
shot dead inside a police jail.

Mayor Antonio Halili, who was assassinated by a sniper as he attended a
flag-raising ceremony outside his office in Tanauan city near Manila last
year, was linked by Duterte to illegal drugs hours after the attack.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency also said Mariano Blanco, who was
killed by unknown gunmen at his office in the southern town of Ronda last
year, was also on the government’s narcotics watchlist.

Philippine police say they have killed just over 5,500 drug suspects who
fought back against arrest, but rights groups say the true toll is four times
higher and may amount to crimes against humanity.

International Criminal Court prosecutors have launched a preliminary probe
of the drug war killings, and the UN’s top human rights body has approved a
review.

BSS/AFP/BZC/2015HRS