Wednesday 26 / June / 2024
Manila: Meanwhile, security forces arrested three men suspected of being behind last month's deadly attack on a street market in the president's home city, and found they were linked to IS militants, the defence minister said on Friday.
The suspects belonged to a radical faction of a rebel group and were arrested at a checkpoint while transporting improvised bombs, Delfin Lorenzana told a news conference.
A video had been recovered in which the suspects were "trying to align themselves" with IS, he said.
"We have recovered solid pieces of evidence showing that they are indeed the terrorists who bombed Davao City," Lorenzana said.
The three men, wearing orange prison uniforms and handcuffs, were paraded before the media.
Fourteen people died and 70 others were wounded in the September 2 bombing in Davao, the city which Rodrigo Duterte was mayor for 22 years prior to being elected president.
Lorenzana said that attack was aimed to "disrupt and divert" the attention of the military from its campaign to wipe out Abu Sayyaf group in the country's south.
"We are still looking for the mastermind," he said, adding there were 10 people involved and the group had prepared grenades as a backup plan if the bombs failed.
Firearms, ammunition and home-made bombs were discovered on Friday when security forces raided the house of the father of one of the arrested suspects in Mindanao province, Lorenzana said.
Meanwhile, Filipinos gave Duterte an "excellent" rating for his war on drugs, an opinion poll showed on Friday, but there was clear unease over the deadly campaign as most respondents said it was important to arrest suspects alive.
Some 84 per cent of 1,200 respondents surveyed by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) pollsters said they were satisfied, or moderately satisfied, with the president's anti-narcotics campaign.
Since Duterte took power on June 30, promising to eradicate the scourge of drugs from the Philippines, more than 3,600 people have been killed.
Western governments and human rights groups have expressed concern and called for thorough investigations into the deaths, some expressing alarm over the numbers killed. They have incurred Duterte's wrath for doing so.
Most of the 1,377 people shot by police were listed drug suspects, according to national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa. Human rights activists suspect the remaining 2,294 victims were mostly killed by vigilantes.
Of the 84 per cent that said they were satisfied with the president's anti-narcotics campaign, 54 per cent were "very satisfied" and 30 per cent were "somewhat satisfied". Only 8 per cent of those polled were dissatisfied and the remaining 8 per cent were undecided.
Responses to another question, however, showed the vast majority had qualms about killings of suspects in the drug trade.
Ninety-four per cent said it was important for the police to take suspects alive, while about 6-7 per cent said it did not matter.
Duterte has assured police officers that they will not go to jail for killing a suspected drug trader provided they were killed in a legitimate operations and their lives were in danger.
The poll on the anti-narcotics campaign came a day a separate SWS survey showed only 11 per cent of Filipinos were dissatisfied with Duterte's performance in his first 90 days in office.
Duterte on Friday said he did not care much for ratings or polls and was just doing his job.
"I don't need that," he said in a speech. "It is not a self derogating thing how do you rate yourself?"
