A mayor on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s list of allegedly narcotics-linked officials was shot dead yesterday by a “sniper” in a broad daylight attack at a town ceremony, police said.
Tanauan Mayor Antonio Halili was hit in the chest by a single shot fired from a distance, unleashing chaotic scenes during the weekly flag raising ceremony at the town hall in town south of Manila.
He and about 300 employees and newly elected village leaders were singing the national anthem in a parking lot outside the city hall when he was shot.
Photo: AP
In the moments that followed, terrified onlookers screamed and the mayor’s security details opened fire, video of the scene showed.
“I didn’t know that it was gunfire until people started screaming ‘Somebody’s shooting, somebody’s shooting’ while running in all directions and I saw my mayor slumped on the ground,” village leader Rico Alcazar, who was in a crowd standing behind the 72-year-old Halili, told The Associated Press. “Everybody was shocked and it took sometime before some carried the mayor and brought him away in a car.”
The shooter managed to escape and Halili was pronounced dead at hospital.
Town police chief Renato Mercado said the shot was fired from about 150m away.
“The distance from the position was extraordinary. It could not be done by an ordinary person. His skill can be compared to a trained sniper,” he said.
The controversial Halili had compared himself to Duterte as he publicly shared the president’s hardline position against crime and illegal drugs, but last year Halili’s name surfaced on a “narco-list” presented by Duterte, of officials allegedly linked to narcotics.
Halili was stripped of control of the police following the publication of the list, but he denied any ties to drugs.
Though the Philippines sees occasional slayings of local politicians, the brazen nature of the killing and links to Duterte’s drug war drew immediate outrage.
“This is clearly another case of EJK [extra-judicial killing] resulting from the so-called drug war launched by the government,” Philippine Senator Francis Pangilinan, an opposition leader, said in a statement.
“It is this Philippine image of a ‘wild, wild west’ that has also dampened the desire of both foreign and local investors,” he added.
The government has said that more than 4,200 suspects have been killed as part of the war on drugs, but rights groups charge that the actual death toll is three times higher and that the police and shadowy vigilantes are murdering people even without proof they are linked to drugs.
Three other mayors on the “narco-list” have been shot dead.
Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque condemned the crime and praised Halili as the mayor of “one of the most progressive towns” in his province.
Additional reporting by AP
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS