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Duterte: ‘We planted evidence … (and) the intrigues’

By: John Nery - @jnery_newsstand
INQUIRER.net /

09:01 AM August 21,

2016Inhis early
morning news
conference
Sunday,
President
Duterte
provided a
glimpse of
what he said
he had learned
during his 10
years as a city prosecutor: To bend the law to get the desired outcome.

“I’ve learned a lot during my prosecution days,” the President said. “We planted
evidence. We arrested persons but we released them. But [the President then switches to
an example] telling him that it was this person who squealed on him and then when he
goes out but killing we would say it was this fellow who really did it, who did you in.”
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He explained the reason for the tactic: “We first planted the intrigues, so that we would
know where they were or where they came from.”

The President’s clinical view of what prosecutors and policemen need to do to fight
crime is counter to what the law allows. It is possible that he misspoke; during the
conference he could not recall certain names and mistakenly called Senator Leila de
Lima the chair of the Commission on Appointments. (She was the chair of the
Commission on Human Rights when the long-time Davao city mayor became, in his
words, her “favorite whipping boy.”)

But the context of the first 15 minutes of another rambling, revealing news conference
seems clear.
The implications will also likely become a matter of concern.

Early in the conference he denied that police officers were involved in the extra-judicial
killings where the dead were bundled up in plastic or cardboard: “It is not the work of
the police to be wrapping people with plastics and putting them in bags. That is not the
job of the police! I just told him that one bullet will do. Why do you have to wrap it and
waste your time?”

Then he added: “But we know at the start that we planted the intrigues there.”

There was also this extended passage, about 13 minutes into the conference:

“The reason I called for this conference is I wanted to disabuse the minds of many
women criticizing me. I said I have to mention the connect between De Lima’s driver
and her, otherwise I would look stupid ….

“So, that is one round.

“Wait until we present these guys. They can well maybe deny it initially, but you know,
there are a lot of ways of doing it. Allow me to ask you seven questions, and I will get
the truth from your mouth. I’m not saying I’m the best, but 10 years as a prosecutor was
a learning process of arriving at truths.”/rga

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/808126/duterte-we-planted-evidence-we-first-

planted-the-intrigues#ixzz4XJkZns9L
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