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PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT RODRIGO Duterte says he is backing out of an announced plan to run for vice president in next year’s elections and will retire from politics after his term ends.
He announced the surprise decision on Saturday after accompanying his former long-time aide, senator Bong Go, who filed his own candidacy for the vice presidency at a Commission on Elections centre.
Philippine presidents are limited by the constitution to a single six-year term and opponents had said they would question the legality of Duterte’s vice presidential run before the Supreme Court.
He took office in 2016 and launched a crackdown on illegal drugs that left more than 6,000 mostly petty suspects dead and alarmed Western governments and human rights groups.
The International Criminal Court is investigating the killings.
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He will only be remembered as being a coward with nothing worthwhile or positive to contribute to the World.
I hope this brings the surviving family members some little bit of closure, if anything.
@Carol Conway: actually, takes balls to end yourself. He obviously thought he didn’t want to spend life in a cell.
@Carol Conway: “a coward with nothing worthwhile or positive to contribute to the world”. Sounds like most of the journal comments section!
@John D: Except that I hope none of us have murdered schoolchildren.
Does not look well for the French police and they talk about the West Cork murder not been solved in Ireland.
No system is perfect, but clearly more must be done (e.g. better psychological profiling) when hiring cops.
Also the public needs to be educated more about their rights when dealing with authority figures, and that authority needs to be kept in check. If the victims fell prey is because they believed a lone cop should have the authority to handcuff a young woman and throw her into his car without any explanation, probable cause or at the very least reasonable suspicion.
@Stan Papusa: You’re incorrectly assuming that people don’t change. People do change, so if you want to bring in improved screening / profiling, then it will need to be continuous, not just at the point of entry.
How can a person do such things, I mean they surely knew what was right and wrong, then after killing a few people he just moved away to a quiet neighbourhood and kept his head low. What was the point of it?
@Jj: the golden state killer in America did something very similar. Stopped committing crimes for years. DNA evidence and genealogy got him years later
@jl: the Golden State killer was a police officer also. They seem to be harder to catch because they know how the law works and how to stay one step ahead. This guy would have known his goose was well and truly cooked when he got the summons because they would be seeking DNA evidence from him.
@Sean: seems to be a lot of killers who are cops stories emerging lately – I am a bit amazed such a cunning diet bag didn’t just evade the French altogether and move to somewhere that doesn’t extradite like maybe West Cork or something rather than suicide – I’m waiting for a twist in the plot when it’s revealed the French secret service just had him killed
Am I missing something he was summons to appear for questioning. Now I can understand that if it was a minor offence that would be acceptable. But for the crimes he did that would give him the chance to flee.
@John: They weren’t after him specifically They were questioning dozens of gendarmes who had served in Paris at the time of the murders.,
The comments of Riain in this comments section are indicative of the problem that our society faces. Basically it is a contempt for women and girls by men who are sexually/emotionally inadequate or at best immature. In addition to vetting and re-vetting police and others in authority positions, we need to show zero tolerance to those who degrade or in any way interfere with women and girls going about their business. And this includes banning comments such as those of Riain.
@Bramley Hawthorne: Ban comments that you consider tasteless or offensive? Are you serious? Are you going to be the judge of what is considered acceptable? Btw….I would recommend not going to see the likes of Jimmy Carr. You would be highly offended.
@Bramley Hawthorne: I am with Riain, love serial killer documentaries and all things murderous . There’s no denying that us humans and intrigued by murders and murderers etc. and we will keep watching them ’till the cows come home. Serial killers in particualr. His comment has nothing to do with comtempt for women! Do I have contempt for women too? lol you’ll probably say i’m affected by the partriarchy all around me or some other tripe like that. I actually think people like you who object to something we as humans are so obviously attracted too, by nature you might say, have something to hide. sort of like ‘ the lady doth protest too much’ !
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