Rody breaks ground for drug rehab center in Bukidnon

MALAYBALAY CITY, Philippines – President Duterte yesterday led the groundbreaking of the P700-million drug rehabilitation center in this city and again let loose a tirade against drug lords.

“Leche kayo (damn you), I will kill you. If you won’t stop, as long as I’m the President, I will destroy you, whether you like it or not,” Duterte warned drug lords during his speech at the Bukidnon Provincial Capitol during the culminating ceremony of the Kaamulan Festival.

“I hope they will reach the building before I kill them. These idiots,” he added, referring to drug addicts.

Duterte thanked the Chinese government and Chinese businessmen who supported his bloody drug war by helping construct rehabilitation centers, including the proposed Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Center (DATRC) in Purok 17, Barangay Casisang, Malaybalay City.

“I thank the Chinese people for their generosity to us Filipinos,” he said.

After his speech, the President proceeded to the site of the DATRC, a five-hectare land donated by the city government.

The DATRC started out with the recent signing of memorandum between Chinese non-government organization Friends of the Philippines Foundation, the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Department of Health, according to Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri of Bukidnon.

The facility will have dormitories, four basketball courts, an indoor gymnasium, swimming pool and livelihood training centers for patients. It will provide livelihood programs, capability-building activities and skills training.

The building is expected to be operational by the last quarter of 2017.

“Bukidnon is at the heart of Mindanao. Therefore, establishment of this facility, which will have a capacity to house and handle more than 5,000 recovering drug dependents, is a guarantee that all cities in Mindanao will be catered to,” Zubiri said.

Zubiri explained Malaybalay was chosen as the rehab center’s base because it is midway from various progressive cities in Mindanao. Malaybalay is also an ideal location for a facility for rehabilitation due to its cold weather.

“It will not be like the other facilities where the patients feel like it’s a detention center. In the proposed site, they will be taught many skills, including gardening and organic farming. It has a sprawling resort-like design,” he added.

Bukidnon Gov. Jose Maria Zubiri Jr. said Chinese business groups will also invest in more than a dozen projects in the province in the coming days.

Rody again justifies killings

Last Friday, speaking at the 31st Biennial Convention of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. in Pasay City, the President again justified the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Jr. in jail over drug-related charges despite the court’s order to arrest police Col. Marvin Marcos and 18 other policemen involved in murder.

Duterte made the comment after the European Union (EU) and United Nations special rapporteurs criticized anew the summary killings in Duterte’s drug war, including the Espinosa slay.

“And they would say that 10,000 were killed and this Albuera (mayor) was killed inside (a jail). Did you grieve for this son of a b****?” Duterte said.

“How many lives did he destroy? How many Filipinos now are insane?” he added.

Espinosa and another inmate were killed during a pre-dawn raid in a local provincial jail in November 2016.

Marcos and other policemen claimed Espinosa had a gun and it was a shootout, but the National Bureau of Investigation found it to be a rubout.

Baybay City Judge Carlos Arguelles ordered the arrest of Marcos and his men last March 16. They surrendered to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG-8) in Leyte where they were assigned at the time of the Espinosa slay.

Duterte also justified the killing of couple Melvin and Meriam Odicta. 

“And the Odicta couple who were also executed somewhere… They were running the show on the western side, in Iloilo. Remember I initially said Iloilo was the most…it was them,” the President said.

“And this human rights would grieve for all of these idiots who were born into this world just to destroy their fellow men,” he added.

Duterte again took responsibility for the killings, which he said were offshoots of legitimate police operations.

“This drug war will continue until the last drug lord is killed and the pusher taken out of the streets. If there is no supply of shabu, there will be nobody who will be hooked on it. Some idiot will always be tempted to cook shabu,” he added.

Duterte also rejected the EU’s call for the Philippine government to institute concrete actions to address human rights issues. 

He likewise thumbed down the EU’s proposal for the creation of drug stations, calling it “idiotic” because government institutions will be the ones to administer drug to the addicts.

“The EU, they communicated to us that they want a health-based solution for the drugs,” he said.

“You know, the sons of b**ches, they want us to build clinics. Instead of arresting or putting them in prison, you go there and if you want shabu they will inject you or give you shabu then you go out. If you want marijuana there’s a place there.

“And our people will just go there and consume every chemical until kingdom come, until they are crazy like the four million contaminated. I’ll give it a very liberal increment of something like seven, 800 out of their minds, shrunk brains and they are all over the Philippines,” he added.

“Who will answer for this? Who will answer for those who died? The 77 children almost every day, you look at the papers, a child one year, two years, three years, raped and killed. Who will now answer for this? EU? The United Nations? The Human Rights Commission? How about the lives of the innocent killed because of shabu?” the President asked.

“Son of a b***, you are worrying about…it’s not 10,000, I will place it at two for those who resisted arrest and were killed.

“I will answer for that. I will take the consequences. My order was arrest them if possible, but if they confront you with a violent resistance and if you think that you will die, patayin mo (kill them),” he added.  – With Christina Mendez, Emmanuel Tupas, Edith Regalado