NEW DAVAO SLAYS ALARM ARCHBISHOP

DAVAO CITY -- "Thou shalt not kill."

In November 2001, Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla, alarmed over the spate
of extra-judicial killings here at that time, issued a pastoral letter and
titled it after the Sixth Commandment.

Now Capalla can't help but recall his pastoral letter. The reason: summary
executions or "salvagings" have again hounded this southern metropolis,
claiming the lives of 30 people since last June 16 alone -- and at least 60
since January.

The killings of mostly suspected drug pushers, largely being blamed on the
shadowy Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group, have remained unsolved.

"It still holds true these days. I would still say the same thing today,"
the archbishop told The STAR.

In the 2001 pastoral letter, Capalla called on the government and law
enforcement agencies to stop making the city a "wild, wild West" where the
"law of the gun" prevails.

Capalla, recently elected president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of
the Philippines (CBCP), said the vigilantes violate civil and moral laws
and are criminals themselves.

"Killing, murder, 'salvaging' or the taking of life in whatever manner is
an affront (to) the Creator and (to) humanity. Committing it with full
knowledge and willfulness is a mortal sin as far as Catholics are
concerned," he said in the pastoral letter.

Capalla also cited state laws on crime and punishment and on the
dispensation of justice. "But no one takes the law into one's hands simply
because no one is above the law ," he said.

"Sooner or later, they will perish by their own lethal armaments, if not by
those of others," he added.

Tolerating the vigilantes to kill, he said, is an "admission" on the part
of the government of its "failure" to fulfill its duty to prevent crime.

Recently, the National Democratic Front-Mindanao held Mayor Rodrigo Duterte
accountable for the killings, something he merely shrugged off.

"If they think it's me, so be it," he said.

Duterte denied that the summary executions were government-sponsored.
"There are just people out there perhaps who could not tolerate the
proliferation of illegal drugs in the city," he said. Ba