House Speaker files candidacy for Mayor in Davao City
Saturday, November 28, 2009 04:30:06 PM

DAVAO CITY, Philippines - Vowing to stop the senseless summary executions that turned Davao City in the southern Philippines the international hotbed of human rights abuses, House Speaker Prospero Nograles formally launched Saturday his bid for the local mayoralty post.

It was a challenge to the heir of his political nemesis Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, presumably his daughter Sarah, the incumbent Vice-Mayor.

Nograles' filing of candidacy is anticipated to spark one of the most exciting political matches in the country as his son, lawyer Karlo Nograles, is also expected to be pitted against the mayor himself for the congressional race in the 1st District of Davao City.

“This will be like the most anticipated fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. And since I am an ardent Pacquiao supporter, I'll be the Pacquiao in this fight. Me and my son will give them a good fight,” the solon said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.

Nograles, a bar topnotcher and former human rights lawyer, said he will change Davao City, from being international embarrassment because of its long list of violent summary executions and assassinations, to a city of peace and development.

“Unlike Duterte's creed that drug users and petty criminals are legitimate targets of assassinations, I believe that using fear to impose one's will to the citizenry is sign of weak and incompetent leadership. There are so many options that are available to ensure a peaceful city without resorting to these horrifying acts of summary killings. This solution is very simplistic .You cannot fight crime by committing another crime,” he said.

“Drug users and pushers cannot legally be legitimate targets of assassination. This is a basic and fundamental violation of human rights. We do not kill them, we rehabilitate them, educate them, employ them, to give them a new lease in life,” Nograles added.

He said that if he and his son succeed in battling it out with the Duterte's, the secretive use of the P500-million annual peace and order fund that is being used by the City Hall would be used to build rehabilitation centers and mental health facilities, and to finance skills training, scholarships and livelihood assistance for Davaoenos who are forced to commit petty crimes due to poverty.

“Those who were killed are poor and plain petty criminals and there are persistent speculations that the P500-million annual peace and order fund are being used to finance thugs who commit these murders. This will have to change,” he said.

And while Duterte is insistent that he had nothing to do with the more than a thousand summary executions in Davao City, one victim of which was radio journalist Ferdie Lintuan, Nograles said the Mayor is not doing anything to stop these killings that made Davao City one of the world’s worst in human rights record.

“It is a crying shame that even the Maguindanao massacre is a puny act of horrific violence if we compare it with the number of execution-style deaths in Davao City which now accounts for more than a thousand deaths,” Nograles said.

Apart from his commitment to stop the summary killings attributed to the shadowy group called Davao Death Squad, Nograles vowed to improve the city's health care system by putting up more hospitals accessible even in remote areas, more scholarships to poor but deserving students.

He also promised to stop the unconscionable and confiscatory increases in real estate taxes that are now being practiced by City Hall.

Nograles said that his offer for an alternative government in Davao is borne not by his personal differences with Duterte, but by his desire to restore democratic governance in the city.

“This is an option for those who disagree to a fused Legislative and Executive powers where you see a father and daughter dominating government, where you throw to the garbage can the time-honored principle of check-and-balance, where government becomes a family enterprise,” he said.

“This candidacy is about restoring the ideals of democratic governance where one can disagree without the danger of being harassed or killed, where each one has his chance to grow as leader, where warlords and would-be warlords have no chance to turn into monsters,” he said.