Duterte admission of killings only weakens daughter Sara’s stance

Ex-president Rody Duterte’s admission of wanton killings during his Davao City mayoralty dented his daughter VP Sara’s political stature.

The father’s televised self-incrimination not only reassociated Sara with the Davao Death Squad. It also weakened her justifications for P650-million confidential funds as VP and Education Secretary.

In the end, Sara retreated from her feud with Congress. She ignored daddy’s public counsels as well.

Dispute over confidential-intelligence funds (CIF) recently pulled down Sara’s ratings. Congress scrapped for 2024 the no-audit P500-million CIF as VP and P150 million as education chief that she got for 2023.

The elder Duterte advised Sara Oct. 10th to use confidential funds to slay detracting “communists in Congress.” “Patay kayong mga komunista diyan. Prangkahin mo na ‘yan si France,” he blurted on Sonshine Media Network Inc., apparently referring to Sara’s legal left critic Rep. France Castro, of Alliance of Concerned Teachers Party-list.

Duterte admitted using intelligence funds as mayor to hire assassins of communists: “My intelligence funds, I used it to buy. I had all of them killed. That’s why Davao is like that. Your companions, I really had them killed. That’s the truth.”

SMNI took down the video Oct. 12th. But staunch Duterte censurer ex-senator Antonio Trillanes IV circulated it online, then submitted it to the International Criminal Court.

Duterte faces charges before the ICC for extrajudicial killings during part of his term, November 2011-June 2016. A bloody drug war marked his presidency, July 2016-June 2022.

Duterte alternated with Sara as mayor and vice mayor. Councilors granted them confidential, not intelligence funds, differing but complementing.

Main witness at the ICC is retired Senior Police Officer-3 Arthur Lascañas. The self-confessed Davao Death Squad boss detailed some of more than a hundred alleged assassinations of drug suspects and political foes.

Five DDS henchmen corroborated Lascañas’ avowals: militiaman Edgar Matobato, SPO1 Vivencio Jumawan Jr., barangay chief Fulgencio Pavo and aliases Jose Basilio and Crispin Salazar.

City hall paid them huge amounts even when Sara was mayor, 2010-2013,