Thursday, October 09, 2008 So: Freedom of choice, Duterte style By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
“MAMILI ka, papatayin kita or display kita?”
It sounds like a threat but it’s a choice that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte accords suspects in crimes that police have arrested. The mayor doesn’t even utter the words in a threatening voice or in an Eddie Garcia enunciation. He says it like he’s asking whether you prefer Pepsi Max to Coke Zero.
Unless the suspect is really thirsty, he wouldn’t dare answer “Pepsi Max” or “Coke Zero,” or worse, “iced tea” when the mayor pops the question at the police station.
Duterte, who’s back at City Hall after having recuperated from Berger’s Disease, will have none of the new directive from the Philippine National Police (PNP) to stop the practice of displaying arrested suspects before the media like they were GROs in a KTV bar. He will present the suspects to the media if he deems it necessary because he is not covered by the PNP directive anyway, Duterte is quoted by Sun.Star Davao as saying.
By exposing the suspects’ faces and identities, the public will be warned against these people especially if they are swindlers, he says. The mayor will have none of PNP Director Jesus Versoza’s invocation of human rights protection and presumption of a suspect’s innocence until after trial, in his directive.
Duterte is not coy about vanquishing criminals in his city through violent means, which no doubt Mahatma Gandhi would have disapproved. Whether or not they agree to the vigilantism, residents of Davao City have never felt safer in their community than now with Duterte as mayor. Certain of their fate if they’re caught, criminals are thinking twice about carrying out their plans in Duterte’s city.
“It’s either you behave or you leave the city. I will have your face displayed or I will bury you. You choose.” This is how Duterte says he deals with criminals in Davao City. In the Duterte lexicon, this is democracy, this is freedom of choice.
Although the mayor says he himself will present the suspects to the media and spare the police from violating Versoza’s directive, I don’t know how Duterte can effect this without involving the local police and the media.
Unless the mayor puts the arrested suspects in his custody, custodianship of arrested suspects lies with the police.
The local police will be situated in a dilemma and will try to cope with it by drinking regular Coke. On one end, they have Duterte to contend with and on the other, Versoza. Even if Versoza is their big boss, it’s the mayor who can have them booted out of their posts. The mayor wields more influence over the local police than the PNP director, who the local police rarely see or if at all.
As to the media, journalists are veering away from publishing pictures or airing police presentations of arrested suspects with cardboard IDs hanging on their necks. But Duterte is not helping media here.
If Duterte insists on “displaying” suspects to the media, the local papers and TV stations can choose to print or kill the photos or to air or not the lineup of suspects.
The mayor says he is accountable to the public by warning them against criminals and unscrupulous people. So do the local police to the PNP and the media to their readers and themselves.
If he wants their faces displayed, he can buy newspaper space or airtime for these arrested suspects. Mamili ka, Mayor, Sun.Star Davao or Superbalita Davao? ABS or GMA? Pepsi Max or Coke Zero?
