HOUSE Speaker and Davao City mayoralty candidate Prospero Nograles is not hopeful that the two murdered Bantay party-list campaign volunteers in Davao will be given justice.
"There will be no chance to solve these killings and almost a thousand other killings here in Davao City as long as Duterte and his family control Davao, the Task Force Davao, and the police. They will all turn a blind eye," he said.
Nograles and his opponent incumbent Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte have been locked in incessant word war since the beginning of the campaign.
The Speaker said that he should not be the one asked on who murdered Juliana “Huling” Noquera.
"Do not ask me who killed Huling Noquera and mutilate her face and tortured her and stabbed her. You go ask Duterte," he said in a text message.
Duterte has earlier denied that he is behind the killings of Bantay party-list campaign volunteers Noquera and Ronaldo Miranda, whose bodies were found decomposing in two separate locations last Saturday.
He also denied that he is behind the alleged abduction of two campaign workers of congressional candidate Ruy Elias Lopez and Anad Party-list Representative Pastor Juan Alcover.
Duterte said he would rather kidnap the two rather than their “minions.”
The Davao City mayor even challenged Alcover and Bantay Paty-list Representative Jovito Palparan, a known oppositionist of communist insurgents, to visit Paquibato proper, where New People’s Army Kumander Parago “is already waiting for them there.”
While not directly running against Duterte, Palparan, Alcover, and Lopez are known to be allied with Nograles.
Nograles has been very blunt in saying that Duterte is allowing extra-judicial killings in Davao to happen within his watch.
"They do things with public impunity. Killings here are backed up by local officials. Human rights commission must come out strongly with their report becaue they know and everyone knows who is behind all the extrajudicial killings in Davao," he said. (Angela Casauay/Sunnex)