Twin bomb attacks on Philippine church kills at least 18

Yahoo – AFP, Nickee Butlangan, January 27, 2019

It is one of the deadliest bomb attacks to strike the southern Philippines in 

years (AFP Photo/NICKEE BUTLANGAN)

Jolo (Philippines) (AFP) - At least 18 people were killed Sunday when a double bomb attack hit a Catholic church on a southern Philippine island that is a stronghold of Islamist militants, the military said, days after voters backed expanded Muslim self-rule in the region.

In an attack claimed by the Islamic State group, a powerful first blast shattered pews, broke windows and left bodies strewn inside the cathedral in the Catholic-majority nation's restive south as mass was being celebrated.

Moments later a second explosion outside killed troops who were rushing to help the wounded in the smoking and heavily damaged church on Jolo, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.

It is one of the deadliest bomb attacks to strike the insurgency-plagued southern Philippines in years, and shows militants in the region are still a threat despite recent steps toward peace, experts said.

The bloodshed came less than a week after voters' decisive approval of giving Muslims in the south more control over their own affairs, which sparked hopes of quelling long-time separatist violence.

Manila swiftly vowed to hunt down the attackers, but no group has claimed the 

bombing (AFP Photo/NICKEE BUTLANGAN)

"Just because the (referendum) has passed does not mean that things are going to get better overnight," said Gregory Wyatt, director for business intelligence at PSA Philippines Consultancy.

"There are still militant groups that will continue to be active and pose a security threat," he told AFP.

Pope Francis, speaking in Panama, expressed his "strongest reprobation" for the violence. Once again, he said, "the Christian community has been plunged into mourning."

Bishop Angelito Lampon, who previously served in Jolo, said Sunday's attack may be the worst, but was certainly not the first on the church.

"In my 20 years there from 1998 to last week, there were seven hand grenades lobbed into our cathedral," he told AFP. "Fortunately there was just a little damage and no casualties."

IS group claim

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, issuing a formal communique saying two suicide bombers had detonated explosive belts, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist activities.

But a military report said the second bomb was left in the utility box of a motorcycle in the parking area outside the church.

Authorities said the notorious Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group could be

behind the blasts (AFP Photo/NICKEE BUTLANGAN)

Manila swiftly vowed to hunt down the attackers.

"We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime," presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement. "The law will give them no mercy."

Five soldiers, a member of the coast guard and 12 civilians were among the dead while 83 other people were wounded, said regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana.

The regional police chief Graciano Mijares put the toll slightly higher at 20 dead, lower than a figure of 27 he gave initially.

Pro-IS militants are among multiple armed networks based in the strife-torn region of Mindanao.

President Rodrigo Duterte put the southern Philippines under martial rule after pro-IS militants seized the southern city of Marawi in May 2017.

A bombing the previous year that ripped through a bustling night market in Duterte's hometown left 15 dead, and was blamed on the Maute gang of Islamist militants that pledged allegiance to IS.

The door, pews and glass windows of Mount Carmel Cathedral were blown off, 

military photos showed (AFP Photo/HANDOUT)

Before the IS jihadists' claim emerged, Besana said the notorious Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group could be behind the blasts, but added officials were "not discounting the possibility that there are other perpetrators".

The remote island of Jolo is a base of the Abu Sayyaf, which is blamed for deadly bombings, including an attack on a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that claimed 116 lives in the country's deadliest terror assault.

'Peace must prevail'

Neither the hardline factions aligned with IS nor the Abu Sayyaf were part of the decades-long peace process with the nation's largest separatist group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, that culminated January 21 with the resounding approval of a new Muslim led-region in the south.

Rebels and the government in Manila hope the new so-called Bangsamoro area will finally draw the investment needed to pull the region from the brutal poverty that makes it a hotspot for radical recruitment.

Despite Sulu province -- which includes Jolo -- voting against creating the new region, the area will still be part of the Bangsamoro.

The timing of Sunday's bombs raised questions on whether the attack was meant to derail the peace process.

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon said "extremist criminals" plotted the bombings.

"We will not allow them to spoil the preference of the people for peace," Esperon said. "Peace must prevail over war."

US returns war trophy bells to Philippines

Yahoo – AFP, Ayee Macaraig, December 11, 2018

The bells will be sent back later this week to the church in the central town of
Balangiga where they were looted by US soldiers avenging a surprise attack that
killed 48 of their comrades on September 28, 1901 (AFP Photo/TED ALJIBE)

Manila (AFP) - Church bells seized from the Philippines by US troops as war trophies over a century ago were returned on Tuesday, in a bid to turn the page on a difficult chapter between the historical allies.

Giving back the three so-called Balangiga bells meets a decades-old demand from the former US colony at a time when the two nations' ties have been rattled by President Rodrigo Duterte's pivot to China.

"Returning these bells is the right thing to do," US Ambassador Sung Kim said at a sober handover ceremony on a Manila airfield, where a cheer went up when the bells were pulled from wooden crates.

"It is my great honour to be here at the closing of a painful chapter in our history," he told the crowd that included people who had lobbied for years to bring the bells home.

Residents from Balangiga town pose for photos next to one of the three 

Balangiga church bells shortly after it arrived (AFP Photo/TED ALJIBE)

The bells will be sent back later this week to the church in the central town of Balangiga where they were looted by US soldiers avenging a surprise attack that killed 48 of their comrades on September 28, 1901.

In reprisal, the US commander Jacob Smith ordered the surrounding island of Samar be turned into a "howling wilderness", resulting in the slaughter of thousands of Filipinos and Balangiga's razing.

The return of the bronze bells has been divisive with some US veterans and lawmakers, who see them as a tribute to fallen American troops, while the Philippines hails them as a symbol of its struggle for independence.

Two of the bells had been on display in the US state of Wyoming and the other in South Korea until being restored and flown to a Manila air base Tuesday aboard an American military cargo plane.

The bells were flown to a Manila Tuesday aboard an American military cargo

plane (AFP Photo/TED ALJIBE)

'Ring again after 117 years'

"It is time for healing. It is time for closure. It is a time to look ahead as two nations should with shared history and as allies," Philippine secretary of defence Delfin Lorenzana said.

"After 117 years the sound of the bells will once again ring," he added.

Manila's push for the bells' repatriation began in the 1990s and has had backing from Philippine presidents as well as from the Catholic Church and historians, but also supporters in the US.

Duterte, 73, bluntly called on Washington in a 2017 speech -- where Kim was in the audience -- "Give us back those Balangiga bells. They are not yours."

Within months of winning the presidency in mid-2016 he signalled his intention to split with the Philippines' former colonial master and end a standoff with Beijing over the disputed South China Sea.

Philippine's Ambassador to the US Jose Romualdez visited the bells at a 

Wyoming air base with US Defense Secretary James Mattis earlier this year, 

after the US announced they would be returned (AFP Photo/Braydon Williams)

The president did not attend Tuesday's handover, but is due to speak at a ceremony Saturday in Balangiga when the bells -– which weigh a combined 408 kilograms (900 pounds) -– will be given back to the church.

Salvador Panelo, the president's spokesman, claimed a lot of the credit for Duterte, pointing to his "strong political will". However, experts said the process had been complicated.

"No single president can claim credit to it," Francis Gealogo, history professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, told AFP. "The credit should be given to the Filipino people who campaigned vigorously and actively."

A key factor was also major American veterans' associations, including the largest group Veterans of Foreign Wars, dropping their opposition to the bells being given back.

VIDEO: Church bells seized from the Philippines by US troops as war trophies over a century ago have been returned in a bid to turn the page on a difficult chapter between the historical allies https://t.co/tOcymnf9Dc pic.twitter.com/9XV70sPtee

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 11, 2018

VIDEO: Boatloads of tourists dock in the Philippines' famous holiday island of Boracay as the government declares it open after a six-month closure and clean-up

VIDEO: Boatloads of tourists dock in the Philippines' famous holiday island of Boracay as the government declares it open after a six-month closure and clean-up pic.twitter.com/zoXQ3KTVuC

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 26, 2018

'I'll come back': Australian nun defiant over Philippine expulsion

Yahoo – AFP, Cecil MORELLA, 1 May 2018

Australian nun Patricia Fox, who faces deportation, prays in a mini-chapel at
her residence in Manila

She spent decades helping the Philippines' poorest people, but Australian nun Patricia Fox is fighting deportation after drawing President Rodrigo Duterte's ire -- and says she will try to return even if expelled.

The 71-year-old Melbourne native is due to be kicked out of the country by May 25 after Duterte personally accused her of political activism that violates the rules of her visa.

Fox was singled out as Manila cracks down on foreign critics on its soil, where the president's deadly anti-drug war has provoked a storm of international condemnation.

The government deportation order against her sparked outrage from rights advocates and the religious community, but authorities are pressing ahead.

"I'm still hoping that somehow something will happen (to stop the expulsion)," she told AFP in Manila.

Even if her appeal fails, Fox said she would still like to return and resume her work in the nation that has been home since 1990.

"If I can come back as a tourist I'll try and come back," she said. "This is my life."

She landed in the Philippines as a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, a congregation of nuns founded in France in 1847 and famed for harbouring Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution in World War II.

A former practising lawyer who worked with indigent clients in Australia, Fox said she has been educating landless Filipino farm hands and factory workers about their rights.

Then on April 16 immigration service agents arrived at the congregation's modest Manila office.

Australian nun Patricia Fox was escorted by immigration officers after leaving
a detention facility in April

'No right to criticise'

Fox, the country head of an eight-member missionary group, was hauled off to the government agency's headquarters, where she was informed of the allegations.

She said she spent the night on the floor of the immigration service building, lying on a borrowed blanket and getting little sleep.

The nun said she apparently angered the president by joining a fact-finding mission in April to investigate alleged abuses against farmers, including killings and evictions by soldiers fighting guerrillas in the southern Philippines.

In Duterte's hometown of Davao, Fox went to see farmers detained on charges of possessing explosives, and attended a press conference by workers who were fired after demanding better wages and conditions.

"I gave a solidarity statement saying the social teachings of the Catholic Church say you have the right to unionise, you have the right to just wages, you have the right to security of tenure," she said.

Fox said she thought she was safe in espousing a pet advocacy of the president.

Australian nun Patricia Fox, a former practicing lawyer, arrived in the

Philippines in 1990

Duterte vowed during the 2016 election campaign to end the common corporate practice of hiring workers on five-month contracts to avoid paying benefits enjoyed by permanent employees.

Yet hours after Fox's release, Duterte announced he had personally ordered her investigated as a warning to foreigners who criticise his government.

"Don't let that nun in because her mouth is one that knows no shame. You do not have that right to criticise us," he added. "You insult me."

Earlier in April Manila also deported Italian Giacomo Filibeck, deputy secretary general of the Party of European Socialists, who had condemned Duterte's anti-drug war.

Fox said she has been quiet on the narcotics crackdown, a sensitive point that usually draws a response from Duterte.

"Presidents can say what they like, but you know I've never met the president. I don't remember saying anything in public about him," the nun said.

"I don't know where his information is coming from."

Heavy security as Philippines closes Boracay to tourists

Yahoo – AFP, Ayee Macaraig, April 26, 2018

President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the shutdown this month after calling the resort
 a "cesspool", dirtied by tourism-related businesses flushing their raw sewage
directly into the ocean (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

Boracay (Philippines) (AFP) - The Philippines shuttered its most famous holiday island Boracay to tourists on Thursday for a six-month clean-up, which the government has imposed with a muscular show of its security forces.

Coast guard boats were on patrol and assault rifle-wielding police were posted at entry points to the once-pristine island that has become tainted by heavy commercialisation and overdevelopment.

Regional police head Cesar Binag told AFP the shutdown began past midnight, with tourists barred from boarding the ferry that is the main way onto the island.

"Boracay is officially closed to tourists. We are not closing establishments but tourists cannot enter. We are implementing the instruction of the president," Binag said.

About 600 policemen were deployed, with some performing life-like drills including riot officers battling bottle-hurling protesters and mock hostage taking of sunbathers -- all before startled locals.

"My nephews and nieces were afraid," Filipino tourist Tara Calcetas told AFP. "It was scary because there were people swimming yesterday (at the beach) and the police were firing guns as if there was a criminal here."

Map and factfile on the Philippines' best known holiday island 

Boracay. (AFP Photo/Laurence CHU)

The government conceded on Thursday there was no real threat, with interior ministry assistant secretary Epimaco Densing telling AFP the security presence was "just part of preparing for the worst".

President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the shutdown this month after calling the resort a "cesspool", dirtied by tourism-related businesses flushing their raw sewage directly into the ocean.

During the closure, only residents with ID cards are allowed to board ferries to Boracay, which is home to around 40,000 people.

People on the so-called "party island" held a final bash on the beachfront on the eve of the closure, complete with a fireworks display and cheers of "Bye, Bye Boracay".

But on Thursday, residents had the swaying palms, turquoise waters and usually mobbed white-sand beaches mostly to themselves.

"This is what you call an island, a paradise. Boracay looks like its original beautiful self," said restaurant cook John Reymar.

The Philippines has pledged to take advantage of the calm to spruce up the 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) chunk of bruised paradise.

There are plans to bulldoze illegal or dilapidated structures, to shore up the island's infrastructure and clean up the mess left by years of unchecked growth.

Volunteers help to clean up Boracay's Bulabog beach (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

However, plans to help the up to 30,000 people who had been employed by the island's bustling tourist trade were less clear. Though Duterte has promised some $38 million in funds to help workers, they say they haven't seen a cent yet.

The workers were drawn by the relatively good wages on the island that has seen the number of visitors roughly quadruple to two million since 2006.

Those tourists, a growing number of whom are Chinese and Korean, pumped roughly $1 billion in revenue into the Philippine economy last year.

But its growth from a sleepy backpacker hideaway into a mass-tourism hub with fast food outlets on the beach has taken a toll.

Unchecked construction has eaten away at the island's natural beauty, while slimy algae-filled waves in some areas and mountains of discarded drink bottles are problems acknowledged even by critics of the shutdown.

"I'm all for rehabilitation and preserving it but clearly this is not the way to do it," Philippine politics expert Ashley Acedillo told AFP.

He called the closure an "ill-thought through, unplanned and knee-jerk action" that did not take into account the economic impact on the island's workers and business community.

Reymar, the restaurant cook, agreed: "But maybe without tourists, what is the use of having a beautiful island?"

Tourists banned from Philippines' famed Boracay island for six months https://t.co/sBX6FDayDA pic.twitter.com/i6Xdptjci1

— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 26, 2018

Philippine church bells ring in drug war protest

Yahoo – AFP, September 14, 2017

Philippine police have reported killing more than 3,800 people to fulfil President
Rodrigo Duterte's vow to rid the country of narcotics (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

Church bells rang across the mainly Catholic Philippines late Thursday as bishops rallied opposition to the "reign of terror" that has left thousands dead in President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war.

Police have reported killing more than 3,800 people to fulfil Duterte's vow to rid the country of narcotics, with the 15-month crackdown triggering wider violence that has seen thousands of other people found dead in unexplained circumstances.

An elderly church sexton tugged on a rope to ring a 171-year-old bell atop the San Roque cathedral, its slow, deep peals sweeping over the vast slums of northern Manila around the 211-year-old church.

"Many of the drug killings had taken place in this diocese," Ryan Rezo, another church employee, told AFP.

Church leaders said bells around the country would simultaneously ring for five minutes from 8:00 pm (1200 GMT) to honour the dead and remind the living that the bloodshed must stop. The ritual will continue for 40 nights.

"We cannot allow the destruction of lives to become normal. We cannot govern the nation by killing," Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle said in a pastoral letter last week launching the campaign.

The president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, followed up this week with an even stronger pastoral letter.

'Reign of terror'

"For the sake of the children and the poor, stop their systematic murders and spreading reign of terror," Villegas wrote.

Duterte won last year's presidential elections on a brutal law-and-order platform in which he promised an unprecedented campaign to eradicate illegal drugs in society by killing up to 100,000 traffickers and addicts.

Duterte has made the drug war the top priority of his administration, and has regularly encouraged more bloodshed with comments such as describing himself as "happy to slaughter" three million addicts.

Nevertheless, the president and his aides reject allegations they are overseeing a crime against humanity.

They say police are killing only in self-defence, and the thousands of other unexplained murders could be due to drug gangs fighting each other.

Many Filipinos looking for quick solutions to crime continue to support Duterte, according to polls, and he enjoys majority backing in both houses of Congress.

But the Church has emerged as the leader of a growing opposition in recent months.

The killings of three teenagers, two of them at the hands of police in the northern Manila district of Caloocan on consecutive nights last month, sparked rare street protests against the crackdown.

Caloocan Bishop Pablo David said earlier Thursday he was giving refuge to two witnesses to the killing of one of the three slain boys.

"If you are a relative of a victim of extrajudicial killing or a witness to the extrajudicial killing of a particular victim, now is the time to come out," he told reporters.

Church officials say the tolling of bells for the dead originated from the Crusades, when Christian nations of Europe sent military expeditions to reclaim holy places in the Middle East.

The Catholic Church, to which eight in 10 Filipinos belong, has a history of influencing politics in the Philippines and helped lead the "People Power" revolution that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

Duterte has repeatedly praised Marcos as a "hero", and made speeches seeking to discredit the Church.

Philippine church bells to toll as Catholic bishops oppose President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war https://t.co/r7pCEije3y pic.twitter.com/9MED60B0eM

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 14, 2017

Philippine Church head urges end to drug killings

Yahoo – AFP, Ayee Macaraig, August 20, 2017

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has launched an unprecedented crackdown
on illegal narcotics since winning the presidency last year (AFP Photo/TED ALJIBE)

Manila (AFP) - The head of the Philippines' powerful Catholic Church called Sunday for an end to the "waste of human lives" following a brutal week in President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war in which a 17-year-old boy was among dozens killed.

Police raids dubbed "One Time Big Time" saw at least 76 people shot dead, authorities said, as rights groups and lawmakers condemned the operation as an alarming "killing spree" in Duterte's flagship campaign.

On Sunday, the highest-ranking Church official in the predominantly Catholic nation expressed concern about the increase in the number of deaths.

"We knock on the consciences of those who kill even the helpless, especially those who cover their faces with bonnets, to stop wasting human lives," Manila Cardinal Luis Tagle said in a statement read in Sunday Masses in the capital.

"The illegal drug problem should not be reduced to a political or criminal issue. It is a humanitarian concern that affects all of us."

Duterte, 72, launched an unprecedented crackdown on illegal narcotics after winning the presidency last year on a promise to kill tens of thousands of criminals.

The Church, one of the nation's oldest and most influential institutions, had been among the few voices denouncing the deaths as polls showed Duterte continued to enjoy widespread popularity.

During the 14 months Duterte has been in power, police have confirmed killing more than 3,500 people -- insisting they acted in self-defence.

More than 2,000 other people have been killed in drug-related crimes and thousands more murdered in unexplained circumstances, according to police data.

The numbers saw a sudden increase this week, with Duterte praising officers who shot dead 32 people in a single province as he urged for more.

Following Duterte's call, at least 44 people were killed in various cities, including a 17-year-old boy whose death on Thursday sparked a national furore.

Relatives of Kian Delos Santos released CCTV footage of the boy being dragged away by two officers as they questioned a police report that he shot at them first.

'Awaken consciences'

In Sunday's statement, Tagle called for nine days of prayer for people who have died in the drug war.

"Those with sorrowful hearts and awakened consciences may come to your pastors to tell your stories and we will document them for the wider society," he said.

The Catholic Church has been a central figure in some of the Philippines' most tumultuous political events, including the 1986 "People Power" revolution that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The Church had initially declined to criticise Duterte's drug war but as the death toll of mostly poor people mounted, it began last year a campaign to stop the killings.

Church groups have sheltered witnesses and provided financial and emotional support for families of those slain.

In response, Duterte had launched a broadside against priests and bishops whom he accused of "hypocrisy".

On Sunday, the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines joined Tagle in denouncing the deaths, calling on the faithful to ring church bells daily in solidarity with the victims.

"The sound of the bells is a wake-up call for a nation that no longer knows how to condole with the bereaved, that is cowardly to call out evil. The sound of the bells is a call to stop consenting to the killings!" Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a statement.

Duterte's spokesman said Saturday the government would investigate the deaths but added the president would "vigorously pursue" his drug war.

The head of the Philippines' powerful Catholic Church urges end to president's unprecedented drug killings https://t.co/CF7qPtSCs1 pic.twitter.com/ssr5O9N9qX

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 20, 2017

Philippine Church in 'show of force' against drug killings

Yahoo – AFP, Ayee Macaraig, February 18, 2017

More than 6,000 people have died in the seven months since President
Rodrigo Duterte ordered an unprecedented war on drugs, which has drawn
global criticism for alleged human rights abuses (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

Manila (AFP) - Thousands of Catholic faithful gathered in the Philippine capital on Saturday for a "show of force" in the biggest rally yet to stop extrajudicial killings in President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war.

More than 6,000 people have died since Duterte took office seven months ago and ordered an unprecedented crime war that has drawn global criticism for alleged human rights abuses, but is popular with many in the mainly Catholic country.

Members of one of the nation's oldest and most powerful institutions chanted prayers and sang hymns as they marched to condemn a "spreading culture of violence".

"We have to stand up. Somehow this is already a show of force by the faithful that they don't like these extrajudicial killings," Manila bishop Broderick Pabillo told AFP before addressing the crowd.

"I am alarmed and angry at what's happening because this is something that is regressive. It does not show our humanity."

Duterte, 71, has attacked the Church as "the most hypocritical institution" for speaking out against a campaign that he says would save generations of Filipinos from the drug menace.

About eight in 10 Filipinos are Catholic, making the former Spanish colony of more than 100 million people Asia's bastion of Christianity.

The Church helped lead the revolution that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and a 2001 uprising against then-president Joseph Estrada that saw him ousted over corruption charges.

Thousands of Catholics gather at a dawn rally in a "show of force" against alleged

 extrajudicial killings in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war in Manila on 

February 18, 2017 (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

It had initially declined to voice opposition publicly to Duterte's drug war but, as the death toll of mostly poor people mounted, it began late last year to call for the killings to end.

Saturday's event, called the "Walk for Life", gathered 20,000 people, according to the organisers. Manila police estimated the crowd at 10,000.

The rally also opposed Duterte's push to restore the death penalty, his top legislative priority as part of his crime war.

'Tears and fears'

"It is obvious that there is a spreading culture of violence. It is saddening to see, sometimes it drives me to tears how violent words seem so natural and ordinary," said Manila Cardinal Luis Tagle, the country's highest-ranking Church official.

"In your surroundings, in your neighbourhood, there are so many lives that must be saved. They will not be saved by mere discussion."

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines had called on the faithful to gather at the Quirino Grandstand, where Duterte held a huge pre-election rally, from 4:30am.

"Why dawn? It's because it is during these hours that we find bodies on the streets or near trash cans. Dawn, which is supposed to be the hour of a new start, is becoming an hour of tears and fears," Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the bishops' conference, told the crowd.

Villegas this month issued the Church's strongest statement against the drug war, warning against a "reign of terror" in poor communities.

Officers investigate the killing of two alleged robbers in a gun fight with police
in Manila (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

Among those who attended Saturday's event was Senator Leila de Lima, a former human rights commissioner and one of Duterte's most vocal opponents.

The government on Friday filed charges against her for allegedly running a drug trafficking ring using criminals in the country's largest prison when she was justice secretary in the previous administration.

De Lima, who has repeatedly insisted the charges against her are trumped up to silence her and intimidate other Duterte critics, said she attended Saturday's event as a show of solidarity.

"For as long as I can, I will continue to fight. They cannot silence me," De Lima, who is expecting to be arrested in the coming days, told AFP.

Bone cancer survivor Lucy Castillo, 56, turned up in a wheelchair along with dozens of other people with disabilities.

"When I was in so much pain, I could have taken my life but I did not. Only God can take it," she told AFP.

"I was diagnosed 40 years ago but I was given a chance to live. I want to give these drug addicts another chance."

Duterte executions plan is barbaric: Philippine critics

Yahoo – AFP, December 19, 2016

A Manila crime scene where two alleged drug dealers were gunned down by
unidentified men in October

Philippine Catholic leaders and rights groups on Monday condemned as "barbaric" President Rodrigo Duterte's plan to restore the death penalty and execute "five or six" criminals daily.

Duterte, 71, has made reviving the death penalty in the mainly Catholic nation his top legislative priority as part of a brutal war on crime that has killed 5,300 people.

"There was death penalty before but nothing happened. Return that to me and I would do it every day: five or six (criminals). That's for real," Duterte said Saturday.

An official at the influential Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines said the Church "totally opposed" Duterte's plan.

"The Philippines will be viewed as very barbaric," Father Jerome Secillano, executive secretary at its public affairs office, told AFP.

"It's going to make the Philippines the capital of death penalty in the world."

The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006 following fierce opposition to the penalty from the Catholic Church, the religion of 80 percent of Filipinos.

Before assuming office in June, Duterte vowed to introduce executions by hanging, saying he did not want to waste bullets and believed snapping the spinal cord was more humane than a firing squad.

Duterte said he viewed the death penalty not as a means to deter crime but for retribution.

Rodrigo Duterte shows images of allegedly criminal Philippine politicians at

a meeting with the Filipino community in Singapore on December 16, 2016

His allies in the House of Representatives quickly pushed for the bill and said they would vote on it by January.

The United Nations' human rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, said in a letter to the Philippine congress this month that reviving the death penalty would violate the country's international obligations.

But on Saturday Duterte insisted executions were necessary to fight the drug scourge which he said was "destroying" the nation.

While his aides dismiss his incendiary statements as hyperbole, rights advocates said Duterte's remarks were alarming.

"Setting a quota for executions is just too much. One death is too much because we are talking about lives," Amnesty International Philippines vice chairman Romeo Cabarde told AFP.

Catholic leaders and rights defenders have instead urged the government to reform a slow and corrupt justice system which they said was likely to send innocent people to death row.

Secillano said bishops planned to dissuade lawmakers from voting for the death penalty and would attend congressional debates next month.

Fear of killings

Duterte's crime war has drawn international criticism from the United States and United Nations over concerns about alleged extrajudicial killings and a breakdown in the rule of law.

Duterte won May elections in a landslide on a promise to eradicate drugs in society -- a mandate he often cited to defend his controversial campaign.

Catholic nuns oppose extra-judicial killings at a Human Rights Day rally

in Manila on December 10, 2016

A survey by Social Weather Stations released Monday showed while a majority backed Duterte's drug war, 78 percent of Filipinos were worried that they or someone in their family would be a victim of extrajudicial killings.

The survey also showed 71 percent said it was "very important" that police keep drug suspects they arrested alive.

Police have repeatedly said they only shot at criminals who fought back but the nation's rights agency has questioned this argument and has begun investigating cases.

On Monday, Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa apologised for police killings of criminal suspects but insisted these were done in self-defence.

"Lord, I hope you forgive us even if the ones we kill are bad people," Dela Rosa said during the police's Christmas party.

"If the life of a policeman will be lost just to preserve the life of a criminal, that's a great injustice."

Dela Rosa added Duterte gave police hefty bonuses for leading the crime war.

Related Articles:

Death penalty may be on the way out in US: report

The days of capital punishment may be numbered in the United States, according to a report from @DPInfoCtr https://t.co/xVmiV1VTDj pic.twitter.com/P6WgjYnSqy

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 21, 2016