‘Serial killer’ tag on Duterte draws mixed reactions from senators

“Not all the newspapers in France know how to speak English. Their English is bad,” Sotto said in an interview at the Senate on Monday. “It’s different. There are many serial killers in America, there are none in the Philippines,” he said.

Senate president Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said the “serial killer” tag on the President was “unfair” and had no basis.

“I think that’s unfair because did they conduct any in-depth investigative work before they came up with their conclusion,” Pimentel said in a separate interview.

Asked about the bad press the president has been getting from foreign media, Pimentel said: “That’s beyond our control. I would not lose sleep over the coverage of the president with the foreign media.”

“They have different standards and culture. I don’t know what’s the basis of the editor of that particular paper to jump to a hasty conclusion that the president is a serial killer. What is his evidence?”

Senator Panfilo Lacson said the tag on Duterte was “exaggerated”, saying the paper might have no direct or personal knowledge of what is happening in the Philippines.

“I think it’s unfair to tag our president as a serial killer. To any Filipino, who may have or have not voted for him, it is not appropriate to accuse our president of being a serial killer just because 3,000 suspected drug pushers have been killed so far,” Lacson said.

Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito described the “serial killer” tag as “very sweeping” and “judgmental”.

“Without President Duterte, the world wouldn’t have discovered that the drug problem in the Philippines is this bad,” Ejercito said in a text message.

“Of course in his war against drugs, there would be casualties and collateral damage but that does not make the president a serial killer. The Philippines can be considered a narco state given the drug problem that was discovered. War against drugs has to be relentless,” he added.

To address this bad publicity in the international media, neophyte senator Sherwin Gatchalian said Malacanang’s communication team should highlight the latest Social Weather Station survey, which showed that 84 per cent of Filipinos agree with the government’s war against drugs.

“This agreement [leads] to 76 per cent approval rating of the president. The 84 per cent is clearly a manifestation that the drugs problem in our country is real and the president is doing everything he can to eliminate that problem,” Gatchalian said.

But for Senator Leila de Lima, the international media were just doing their job, which is to report what they saw and heard – particularly citing the testimony of confessed assassin Edgar Matobato in the Senate.

Matobato, who claimed to be a former member of the so-called “Davao Death Squad”, has accused Duterte of ordering the killings of criminal and enemies when he was mayor of Davao City.