DAVAO 1st District Rep. Paolo Duterte on Wednesday called a Senate exhibit on alleged extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during the administration of his father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, a display of “selective mourning and convenient amnesia.” The Senate opened the exhibition honoring EJK victims on Monday in partnership with Sen. Risa Hontiveros and Magsaysay Award laureate Fr. Flaviano Villanueva.
In a statement, Duterte said the Senate chose to display the “heroes” of the EJK narrative but refused to remember the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) officers who died in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, during the administration of the late former President Benigno Aquino III.
”They choose to put on display the so-called heroes of the EJK narrative, yet they refuse to even remember the SAF 44 — men who followed orders, entered hostile territory and never came home,” Duterte said. “No exhibit. No candles. No speeches. Just silence.” He added that organizers “grieve loudly for criminals yet remain eerily quiet about the real victims of drugs — the children raped and killed by addicts, the families destroyed by dependency, the communities terrorized by pushers who operated openly while officials looked the other way.” Duterte questioned the lack of recognition for law enforcement and those fighting the New People’s Army (NPA).
”What happens now to the police officers who fight criminality every day? What happens now to the soldiers who fought and sacrificed their lives against terrorists and the NPA to defend the nation?” Duterte asked. “Are they not worthy of being remembered? Are they not a part of history? Are they not victims as well?” The lawmaker asked if the Senate held any outrage for the innocent or compassion for parents who buried their children because “drugs got there first.” He claimed this “selective empathy” exposed that the exhibit was not about human rights, but about politics and “rewriting history.” He further noted that the drug war did not begin in a vacuum but was born from decades of neglect, corruption and tolerance.
”You cannot condemn the consequences while ignoring the cause,” Duterte said. “You cannot honor one narrative while erasing another. And you cannot claim the moral high ground while standing on the graves of forgotten heroes and ignored victims.” He said the Filipino people deserve truth, balance and honesty rather than “theatrical displays meant to sanitize failure and demonize resolve.”