Mayor Duterte of Davao urged the former
New People’s Army rebels who returned to the folds of law to make the most of
their new lives as the mayor would not think twice shooting them if should they
return to rebellion.
“Go back, and I will kill you,
don’t embarrass me before the government,” Duterte told the 40 rebel
returnees.
Mayor Duterte started his speech by
telling rebel returnees how he began as a government prosecutor handling cases on
the political detainees against Marcos regime. He said that he understood what rebels
have been fighting, although he could not accept their armed struggle.
He then asked the rebel returnees
how many houses do they need for their shelter and how many of them were looking for jobs to support living. Almost all the rebel returnees raised their hands,
prompting Duterte to say: “Ah, maybe, you just go back to the NPA,”
which sent even some of the military officers laughing.
Mayor Duterte told returnees how,
as student of former UP Prof. Jose Maria Sison, he used to join demonstrations
at Malacañang even when his father, the governor Vicente Duterte of the
undivided Davao province, told him to stop or he would resign from his post.
Mayor Duterte told the returnees
he knew how it felt if one’s house was demolished. As settlers from Visayas,
Duterte’s parents happened to build a house on a land already titled by the big
landowners. He said that the war between Christian settlers and the Moro people
in Mindanao did not have anything to do with religion but had something to do
with the land.
“It is a territorial war, not a
religious war,” Duterte said.
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