Leave it to Filipinos to get creative with their protests.
While wearing green, blue, and silver wigs, members of the democratic socialist party-list Akbayan yesterday called for the resignation of toupee-wearing Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
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As funny as they look, the about 60 people who stood outside the DOJ office were dead serious about what they were fighting for, carrying posters with a photo of Aguirre calling him “Hari ng Peke (King of Fake)” and pushing for his resignation.
This comes a week after the DOJ announced that it has dropped charges against high-profile drug lords who violated Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
The list of drug lords included Peter Go Lim, Rolando “Kerwin” Espinosa Jr., and Peter Co. This, even though Co is a convicted drug trafficker and even after Espinosa admitted in 2016 that he had been distributing drugs.
According to the DOJ, the charges were dropped because statements made by drug runner Marcelo Adorco, who was also cleared of charges, were thought to be “rife with inconsistencies and contradictions.”
More than 20 others were also cleared of drug-related charges in the DOJ resolution. This, while about 4,000 people, mostly low-level drug peddlers, have died in police operations since President Rodrigo Duterte war on drugs started in 2016.
Akbayan also protested against the DOJ’s decision on Friday to put the alleged mastermind of the pork barrel scam, Janet Lim Napoles under the Witness Protection Program. In a 2013 expose by The Philippine Daily Inquirer, it was alleged that Napoles created bogus cooperatives that acted as beneficiaries for several senators’ and congressmen’s “pork barrel” or Priority Development Assistance Fund.
“Secretary Aguirre is a coddler of dictators, drug lords, and scammers. In a week, he freed confessed drug lords Espinosa and Lim and then gave witness protection to big-time pork barrel scammer Janet Lim Napoles… Aguirre is on a roll with giving injustices a free pass. While criminals are free to go under his nose, the DOJ has been slapping fake cases against the opposition for exposing their incompetence,” protester Shamah Bulangis told ABS-CBN News.
Senator and former Akbayan Representative Rissa Hontiveros also called for Aguirre’s resignation yesterday and called him a “reliable friend of criminal masterminds, extrajudicial killers, and drug lords.”
In response to his critics, Aguirre said yesterday that those who want him to resign are “ignorant.”
“They’re ignorant. Even if they know that what I did was right, they’re doing that just to put us in a bad light,” he said in English and Filipino. Last week, Aguirre also said that he would not quit his post and has never considered doing so. “Never thought about resigning, no reason to resign,” he said.
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