Amid the controversy surrounding a grave threat complaint against his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, former President Rodrigo Duterte made a bold and controversial statement, suggesting that senators leading in surveys should be killed to make way for PDP-Laban candidates in the upcoming elections.
The former president made these remarks during the proclamation rally of the PDP-Laban senatorial slate at Club Filipino, San Juan City, on the evening of February 13.
Among those present was his ally, incumbent No. 1 Senator Robinhood Padilla.
“There are too many of them [senators]. So what should we do? Let’s just kill them so the top slots in the senatorial standings will be vacant. If we manage to kill around 15 senators, then all of us can get in,” Duterte said.
His statement came a day after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) recommended filing grave threat and inciting to sedition charges against Vice President Sara Duterte over alleged “kill threats” against President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez in November last year.
Duterte, however, seemed to acknowledge the extreme nature of his statement, adding, “But that would be unfortunate. Still, it’s frustrating. Not all of them, of course. Talking of opportunities, the only way to do it is to just blow it up.”
The former president, along with PDP-Laban senatorial candidates Senators Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa and Christopher ‘Bong’ Go, is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity linked to the killing of over 6,000 suspected drug personalities during his administration’s war on drugs.
