[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13660-13663]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PHILIPPINES AND INDONESIA

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, according to recent reports, more than 
3,000 people have been killed in the Philippines in the 12 weeks since 
President Duterte announced his campaign to wipe out illicit drug use.
  More than 1,000 of those deaths were at the hands of the Philippine 
National Police during counternarcotic operations, compared to 68 such 
killings this year in the months prior to President Duterte taking 
office, half of which happened in the period between his election and 
inauguration. The rest were killed apart from police operations, 
incited by President Duterte's violent rhetoric, which has been well 
documented. The vast majority of these individuals were low-level drug 
users, victims of a government seeking to make up for years of 
ineffective, corrupt law enforcement and rampant crime by terrorizing 
the population into submission.
  As the ranking member or chairman for more than 25 years of the 
Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. foreign assistance 
programs, I have been frustrated that we often fail to learn obvious 
lessons when it comes to foreign assistance investments. One example is 
that economic opportunity and security alone cannot assure stability. 
Stability requires legitimate governance and the protection of human 
rights. This is not just an aspiration; it is a practical, strategic 
imperative.
  As a former prosecutor and now ranking member of the Judiciary 
Committee, I know the difference between those who need help versus 
those who deserve to be punished. I also know, as do most people, that, 
when governments condone extrajudicial killings and forced 
disappearances and prey on vulnerable populations, they are sowing the 
seeds of instability, not preventing it.
  For roughly 700,000 Filipino drug users, the prospect of being 
summarily executed on the street has led them to turn themselves into 
the authorities. That would seem to be a good thing. But given the 
shortage of drug treatment centers, these individuals are either told 
to pledge that they will remain drug free and sent home to recover on 
their own, or they are imprisoned in overcrowded, inhumane conditions. 
By failing to address the needs of those who have risked coming 
forward, President Duterte is missing an opportunity to combat the drug 
trade in one of the most sustainable ways possible: by helping hundreds 
of thousands of people get the help they want to beat their addiction.
  No amount of killing will result in reforms that improve the 
judiciary, end corruption and impunity in law enforcement, or 
rehabilitate those caught in the vicious cycle of addiction. To the 
contrary, if President Duterte is serious about improving conditions in 
the Philippines, he should be focusing on improving services for 
Filipinos, not casting them aside; holding law enforcement accountable, 
not giving them a blanket license to kill suspects; and strengthening 
the judiciary, not undercutting it.
  In a troubling sign that these concerns are falling on deaf ears, 
President Duterte's most vocal opponent of his antidrug policies, whom 
President Duterte has publicly accused of being involved in drug 
trafficking and attempting to smear him, was recently removed from her 
position as the head of the senate human rights panel investigating the 
killings. She was replaced by a senator who supports giving the police 
the authority to arrest anyone without a warrant.

[[Page 13661]]

  I know that as ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, 
Senator Cardin also has concerns with the situation in the Philippines, 
and I yield to him for any remarks he may wish to make.
  Mr. CARDIN. I thank my friend from Vermont for his raising this 
important issue and appreciate the opportunity to join him today.
  The relationship between the United States and the Philippines is 
tremendously important for both our nations and both of our people; yet 
I fear that today, because of the way in which the new government of 
President Duterte is approaching this issue, we may find ourselves at 
something of a crossroads.
  If the current trends continue, we can expect that over 6,000 people 
will be dead as a result of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines 
by the end of this year--6,000 people. This is not a situation in which 
there is occasional error or the overzealous application of force. This 
is systematic, widespread, brutal, and beyond the bounds for a 
constitutional democracy.
  And as my colleague from Vermont pointed out, these dead are not just 
drug dealers--although that would be troubling enough given the lack of 
due process--but also include addicts, who need help, as well as 
innocent bystanders.
  I understand President Duterte's desire to stop the devastation 
caused by illegal narcotics. I believe that most of my colleagues do. 
We, too, have seen what drug trafficking and addiction can do in our 
communities. We also have a long history of both successful and 
unsuccessful efforts to combat narcotics, but we have learned that 
there is a right way to approach this issue--with law enforcement, due 
process and rule of law, with treatment--and a wrong way. President 
Duterte, in advocating and endorsing what amounts to mass murder, has 
chosen the wrong way. Senator Leahy is absolutely right when he said 
that a lack of respect for rule of law and democratic governance breeds 
instability, distrust, and sometimes violence.
  Filipino police have attributed most of the killings to suspects who 
``resisted arrest and shot at police officers.'' Yet it has been 
impossible to assess police claims that the killings were all lawful, 
since President Duterte has rejected calls to investigate these deaths. 
He has instead declared the killings as proof of the ``success'' of his 
antidrug campaign and, along with other more forceful and ``colorful'' 
statements which appear to endorse vigilante killings, urged police to 
``seize the momentum.'' Human rights groups, the United Nations, the 
U.S. Government, and a Philippine Senate panel have expressed concerns 
about the killings, which allegedly have been carried out without legal 
proceedings as provided for under Philippine law and international 
obligations.
  As the distinguished gentleman from Vermont knows, I have been a 
strong supporter of the Philippines' law enforcement institutions, 
including recently introducing legislation which would increase law 
enforcement cooperation between our two countries.
  But these recent reports of thousands of extrajudicial killings, as 
well as detentions and a lack of respect for international human rights 
commitments, are profoundly troubling. They undermine our mutual goals 
of upholding liberal democratic values in the region and to 
strengthening international law.
  Indeed, as the Senator from Vermont knows, just this past week, 
President Duterte said that he intends to reconstitute the 
constabulary, the most abusive parapolice under the Marcos regime. For 
any historian of human rights abuses in the Philippines, this is a 
deeply troubling development.
  I would ask my friend and colleague if he shares my concerns with the 
direction that the Philippines appears to be going and the implications 
for the US-Filipino relationship.
  Mr. LEAHY. Yes, like the Senator from Maryland, I am deeply concerned 
with these events, and I believe that, if the extrajudicial killings 
and state-sanctioned violence continue and there is no accountability 
for the abuses that have been committed, there will need to be an 
appropriate response by the U.S. Government.
  Mr. CARDIN. Indeed, as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of 
diplomatic relations between our two countries, we should underscore 
that our alliance is needed now more than ever. With a more assertive 
China in the maritime domain, a changing global economic landscape, and 
an increase of transnational challenges confronting the region, the 
U.S.-Philippines alliance is critical to both our nations.
  But this alliance is about more than just interests narrowly 
construed. The relationship between our nations is more than an 
alliance. It is a genuine friendship. This is a deep relationship built 
on shared values and a deep appreciation, both here and in the 
Philippines, of the importance of democracy, of rule of law, of due 
process, of the proper application of justice, and of constitutional 
order. It is because these extrajudicial killings shake the very 
foundation of that shared vision of shared values that I find these 
developments so deeply troubling.
  So I would also ask my colleague his opinion, as the author of the 
``Leahy Law,'' whether he thinks that the application of ordinary U.S. 
policy and law, and the Leahy Law in particular, is sufficient to meet 
the challenges that we see in the Philippines. Given the nature of 
these extrajudicial killings, how would unit-level vetting apply? And 
if the United States is unable to use the normal tools available, what 
are the other options that we might need to consider?
  Mr. LEAHY. I share the Senator's views about the importance of the 
U.S.-Philippines alliance and his concerns with the implications of 
President Duterte's antidrug policies for that alliance. I wrote the 
Leahy Law, which applies worldwide, to ensure that the U.S. is not 
complicit in human rights violations committed by forces that might 
receive U.S. assistance and to encourage foreign governments to hold 
accountable perpetrators of such abuses. While there are ways we can 
find out which units were involved in these abuses, if President 
Duterte's government is unwilling to work with us, including by 
refusing to investigate allegations of abuses, then we are faced with a 
broader issue that cannot be remedied simply by withholding assistance 
from specific units or individuals.
  The Leahy Law should be used to encourage reform and accountability, 
but to address these systemic challenges, it may be necessary to 
consider further conditions on assistance to the Duterte government to 
ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds are property spent and until that 
government demonstrates a commitment to the rule of law. I have asked 
the State Department to discuss this with us to help inform our 
deliberations on current assistance for the Philippines and on 
decisions we will make for appropriations in fiscal year 2017.
  Mr. CARDIN. I thank my colleague for his thoughtful response. I, too, 
am greatly concerned that, unless we are able to see a more 
constructive approach on these issues from the government of President 
Duterte--an approach that is just as serious about combatting the 
scourge of narcotics, but approaches the issue in a legal framework--
that we may need to consider taking these steps. This is an important 
relationship. I have many Filipino-American citizens in Maryland, and I 
care deeply about strengthening the US-Philippines Alliance, especially 
given the challenges that the regional order faces from a rising China, 
but this issue is critical as well.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank my friend from Maryland for his leadership on the 
Foreign Relations Committee and for his interest in this issue. I look 
forward to working with him to respond to the challenges President 
Duterte's policies pose to our relations with his government, as we 
seek to continue our strategic cooperation with the Philippines.
  Mr. President, on a separate but related matter, we are seeing 
another missed opportunity to reform the criminal justice system in 
Indonesia. President Joko Widodo took office in 2014 amid the hopes of 
many that he would improve on the country's history of human rights 
abuses. Instead, he reinstated the death penalty for drug

[[Page 13662]]

trafficking, and the head of his government's antinarcotics agency 
recently expressed his approval of President Duterte's approach to 
combating illicit drugs. To the contrary, it is a serious mistake, and 
I urge President Joko to reverse course and focus on improving his 
police force and judicial system.
  Any government that uses capital punishment risks taking innocent 
life. But it is a particularly egregious practice in a country like 
Indonesia, where executions are peddled as effective justice despite a 
weak judicial system that is vulnerable to abuse, and to the detriment 
of its reform--nor is torturing and burying those suspected of 
involvement in the drug trade effective law enforcement. It is an abuse 
of power, it prevents remedies to deeply flawed practices within the 
security forces, and it belies the legitimacy of the government.
  We have a complex relationship with both Indonesia and the 
Philippines due to our own history in the region. However, we also 
share many interests. I have supported assistance for both countries, 
but I have also supported conditions on U.S. assistance related to 
progress on human rights and reform of the judiciary, police, and armed 
forces. Unfortunately, I fear that the progress that has been made is 
now at risk of being eroded.
  Often, we are presented with the false choice of supporting human 
rights or national security. I see no such dichotomy here. Consider the 
impact of our complicity in these governments' actions, both on our own 
legacy and on the efforts we are undertaking to help improve security 
and stability in the region. The Philippines and Indonesia cannot 
combat extremism or profess to govern legitimately by murdering 
innocent and nonviolent people, by creating a culture of lawlessness 
and impunity.
  The United States is far from perfect. We have not done as well as we 
should in addressing the illicit drug problem in our own country. Many 
Americans need and want treatment and cannot get it. But we should not 
support those who make a practice of using excessive force or the death 
penalty, rather than protecting the rights of due process and fair 
trials.
  I ask unanimous consent that two articles on this subject, both 
published in the New York Times last month, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Aug. 13, 2016]

 Indonesia's Push To Execute Drug Convicts Underlines Flaws in Justice 
                                 System

                           (By Joe Cochrane)

       Jakarta, Indonesia.--Sixteen years ago, Zulfiqar Ali left 
     his native Pakistan for Indonesia in search of a new life. 
     Last month, that life was on the verge of ending in front of 
     a firing squad.
       Mr. Ali has been on Indonesia's death row since 2005, after 
     he was convicted of heroin trafficking. A government-ordered 
     inquiry later found that he was probably innocent. Still, in 
     July, he was one of 14 convicts, most of them foreigners, who 
     were taken to the prison island of Nusakambangan off Java's 
     southern coast to be put to death.
       Minutes before they were to be executed, on July 29, Mr. 
     Ali and nine other convicts were given a reprieve, for 
     reasons the government has yet to explain. But four were shot 
     dead as scheduled, including a Nigerian who supporters say 
     was framed. And Mr. Ali, like the rest who were spared, 
     remains condemned.
       More than a year after Indonesia drew international censure 
     by putting to death 12 foreigners convicted of drug crimes, 
     the country has resumed a war on narcotics by way of 
     executions--and has again put a spotlight on its profoundly 
     flawed justice system.
       Critics in Indonesia and abroad say those flaws go so deep 
     that the country should not employ the death penalty at all. 
     Researchers have found that many condemned convicts were 
     tortured by the police into confessing, did not receive 
     access to lawyers or were otherwise denied fair trials.
       The resumption of executions means ``that the government 
     has ignored that there is something seriously wrong with our 
     judiciary and law enforcers,'' said Robertus Robet, a 
     lecturer and researcher at the State University of Jakarta's 
     sociology department. He characterized the government as 
     ``trigger-happy.''
       ``When you execute someone, you execute the possibility of 
     finding out the truth,'' he said.
       Amnesty International has denounced ``the manifestly flawed 
     administration of justice in Indonesia that resulted in 
     flagrant human rights violations.'' Similar concerns have 
     been raised by the United Nations and the European Union, 
     which sent a delegation to try to persuade Indonesia to spare 
     inmates who were condemned to die last year.
       Indonesia has long had the death penalty, but its use was 
     sporadic in the years before President Joko Widodo took 
     office in October 2014. Declaring drug abuse a ``national 
     emergency,'' Mr. Joko denied clemency appeals from 64 death 
     row inmates who had been convicted of drug crimes, most of 
     them foreigners, and the government set a goal of executing 
     all of them by the end of 2015.
       That did not happen, but five drug convicts were put to 
     death in January of that year, and eight more in April. (An 
     Indonesian was also executed for murder in January.) Among 
     the convicts executed in April, seven of whom were 
     foreigners, were Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34, 
     Australians who were arrested in 2005 trying to smuggle 
     heroin out of Bali, the resort island.
       The men admitted their guilt, but their lawyers said the 
     judge in the case was corrupt, having offered a lesser 
     sentence in exchange for a bribe. Indonesia rejected appeals 
     by the Australian government to spare them, and Australia 
     withdrew its ambassador in protest.
       Also executed in April was Rodrigo Gularte, 42, a Brazilian 
     convicted of drug smuggling who had repeatedly been given a 
     diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Indonesian 
     law forbids the execution of mentally ill convicts.
       Dave McRae, a senior research fellow at the Asia Institute 
     at the University of Melbourne in Australia who has 
     researched the use of capital punishment in Indonesia, said 
     that the deficiencies in the justice system here could be 
     found in most countries that still used the death penalty.
       ``A lot of the objections to Indonesia's use of the death 
     penalty--inconsistent and arbitrary sentencing and 
     application of the death penalty, allegations of corruption 
     and wrongful convictions, questions over access to lawyers 
     and interpreters and adequacy of representation--are 
     questions that are raised all over the world,'' he said.
       Such concerns have been raised about the cases against some 
     of the convicts spared last month--and some who were 
     executed, including the Nigerian, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike 
     Eleweke.
       Mr. Eleweke was arrested in 2003 after the police found 
     heroin at a restaurant he ran in Jakarta, the capital; he 
     said an employee had planted it. His lawyers say that the 
     police beat him until he confessed.
       They also say that by law, an 11th-hour appeal for clemency 
     issued to Mr. Joko should have automatically halted his 
     execution. Last week, legal activists filed a complaint with 
     a judicial watchdog against Indonesia's attorney general, 
     saying that Mr. Eleweke's execution and those of two others 
     should have been stopped because of those appeals, according 
     to local news reports.
       ``We cannot have the death penalty here because of the 
     judicial system--it's problematic, it's dysfunctional,'' said 
     Ricky Gunawan, director of the Community Legal Aid Institute, 
     a nongovernmental organization that represented Mr. Eleweke.
       Another allegation of corruption emerged just before the 
     executions last month, when one of the men put to death, an 
     Indonesian named Freddy Budiman, was quoted as saying that he 
     had paid senior law enforcement officials more than $40 
     million to let his drug smuggling operation continue before 
     he was arrested.
       That accusation was included in a report released by a 
     rights activist, Haris Azhar, who had interviewed Mr. Budiman 
     in prison; shortly thereafter, the police, the military and 
     Indonesia's anti-narcotics board, all of which were 
     implicated in the report, filed a criminal defamation 
     complaint against Mr. Azhar. On Thursday, Mr. Joko ordered 
     those agencies to investigate the corruption allegations.
       The case of Mr. Ali, the Pakistani who was spared 
     execution, has also raised concerns.
       Mr. Ali, who immigrated to Indonesia in 2000, was accused 
     of drug dealing in 2004 by a friend, Gurdip Singh, who had 
     been caught with heroin; Mr. Singh later said the police had 
     pressured him and offered a reduced sentence to name 
     accomplices. Mr. Al's lawyers say their client was arrested 
     without a warrant at his home, where no drugs were found, and 
     signed a confession after being beaten so badly in custody 
     that he needed two operations.
       Though Mr. Ali retracted his confession and Mr. Singh 
     withdrew his accusation, both men were sentenced to death in 
     2005. But the severity of Mr. Ali's beating drew attention to 
     the case, and the government ordered an unusual inquiry, 
     which concluded that he was likely to be innocent.
       The government never acted on those findings, and Mr. Ali 
     and Mr. Singh were among those who nearly faced a firing 
     squad.
       ``He was never involved in drugs,'' Mr. Ali's wife, Siti 
     Rohani, who lives in West Java Province with their three 
     children, said in an interview.
       A spokesman for Mr. Joko, Johan Budi, denied that the 
     judicial system was dysfunctional, saying the executions had 
     followed legal procedures.

[[Page 13663]]

       Mr. Ali, along with Mr. Singh and several of the other 
     convicts who were given reprieves, is still in prison on 
     Nusakambangan Island, where Indonesia conducts executions. 
     Ms. Siti said she and her husband's family in Pakistan were 
     in a torturous state of limbo.
       ``We're just confused because there is no certainty about 
     my husband's fate,'' she said.
       M. Rum, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, 
     declined to explain why Mr. Ali and the other convicts had 
     been given reprieves, saying only that it was ``for judicial 
     and nonjudicial reasons.'' But he said the executions would 
     eventually be carried out.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Aug. 2, 2016]

      Body Count Rises as Philippine President Wages War on Drugs

                          (By Jason Gutierrez)

       Manila.--Since Rodrigo Duterte became president of the 
     Philippines just over a month ago, promising to get tough on 
     crime by having the police and the military kill drug 
     suspects, 420 people have been killed in the campaign, 
     according to tallies of police reports by the local news 
     media.
       Most were killed in confrontations with the police, while 
     154 were killed by unidentified vigilantes. This has prompted 
     114,833 people to turn themselves in, as either drug addicts 
     or dealers, since Mr. Duterte took office, according to 
     national police logs.
       Addressing Congress last week in his first State of the 
     Nation address, Mr. Duterte reiterated his take-no-prisoners 
     approach, ordering the police to ``triple'' their efforts 
     against crime.
       ``We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last 
     financier and the last pusher have surrendered or been put 
     behind bars or below the ground, if they so wish,'' he said.
       But human rights groups, Roman Catholic activists and the 
     families of many of those killed during the crackdown say 
     that the vast majority were poor Filipinos, many of whom had 
     nothing to do with the drug trade. They were not accorded an 
     accusation and a trial, but were simply shot down in the 
     streets, the critics say.
       ``These are not the wealthy and powerful drug lords who 
     actually have meaningful control over supply of drugs on the 
     streets in the Philippines,'' said Phelim Kine, a deputy 
     director of Human Rights Watch in Asia.
       Critics of the president's campaign have rallied around the 
     case of Michael Siaron, a 29-year-old rickshaw driver in 
     Manila, who was shot one night by unidentified gunmen as he 
     pedaled his vehicle in search of a passenger. When his wife 
     rushed to the scene, a photographer took a picture of her 
     cradling his body in the street, and the photograph quickly 
     gained wide attention.
       Scribbled in block letters on a cardboard sign left near 
     his body was the word ``pusher.'' His family members insist 
     that he was not involved in the drug trade, though they said 
     he sometimes used meth.
       Indirectly acknowledging criticism that his policies 
     trample over the standard judicial process, Mr. Duterte said 
     that human rights ``cannot be used as a shield to destroy the 
     country.''
       He has called for drug users and sellers to turn themselves 
     in or risk being hunted down, a threat backed up by the 
     bodies piling up near daily on the streets of Philippine 
     cities.
       The approach appears to be driving down crime: The police 
     say that they have arrested more than 2,700 people on charges 
     related to using or selling illegal drugs, and that crime 
     nationwide has fallen 13 percent since the election, to 
     46,600 reported crimes in June, from 52,950 in May.
       Mr. Duterte's crackdown has been hugely popular. Filipinos, 
     pummeled by years of violent crime and corrupt, ineffective 
     law enforcement, handed him an overwhelming victory in the 
     May presidential election, and have largely embraced his 
     approach.
       A national opinion poll conducted after his election and 
     just before he took office found that 84 percent of Filipinos 
     had ``much trust'' in him.
       The model for Mr. Duterte's policies is Davao City, where 
     he was mayor for most of the past 20 years. Draconian laws 
     there, including a strict curfew and a smoking ban as well as 
     a zero-tolerance approach to drug users and sellers, have 
     been credited with turning the city into an oasis of safety 
     in a region plagued by violence.
       The dark side of that approach was that more than 1,000 
     people were killed by government-sanctioned death squads 
     during his administration, according to several independent 
     investigations.
       Mr. Duterte has denied having direct knowledge of death 
     squads, but he has long called for addressing crime by 
     killing suspects, whom he calls criminals and has referred to 
     as ``a legitimate target of assassination.''
       He has repeatedly said that those hooked on meth, the most 
     popular drug here, were beyond saving or rehabilitation.
       He ran for president largely on the pledge of applying the 
     same policies nationwide, promising to kill 100,000 criminals 
     in his first six months in office. While the number may have 
     been typical Duterte bravado, the threat of mass killing 
     appears to have been real.
       On Tuesday, the International Drug Policy Consortium, a 
     network of nongovernmental organizations, issued a letter 
     urging the United Nations drug control agencies ``to demand 
     an end to the atrocities currently taking place in the 
     Philippines'' and to state unequivocally that extrajudicial 
     killings ``do not constitute acceptable drug control 
     measures.''
       Ramon Casiple, a political analyst at the Institute for 
     Political and Electoral Reform, said that he shared those 
     concerns but that it was too early to decide whether Mr. 
     Duterte's approach is effective. ``Let's give him his 100 
     days,'' Mr. Casiple said.
       Mr. Duterte has recently raised his sights beyond street-
     level users and dealers, accusing five police generals of 
     protecting drug lords, though he presented no specific 
     evidence.
       He also publicly accused a mayor, the mayor's son and a 
     prominent businessman of drug trafficking, threatening their 
     lives if they did not surrender.
       But the people killed on the street tend to be more like 
     Mr. Siaron, the rickshaw driver.
       Mr. Siaron lived with his wife in a shack above a garbage-
     strewn creek. Having never finished high school, he survived 
     on odd jobs like house painting and working in fast-food 
     restaurants.
       Lately he had been pedaling a rickshaw, earning about $2 a 
     day ferrying passengers through the warren of alleyways in a 
     run-down part of metropolitan Manila.
       On the night he died, he had stopped by his father's fruit 
     stand to ask for an apple.
       Then he told his father he would seek one more fare before 
     heading home. As he rode off, gunmen on motorcycles sped by, 
     pumping several bullets into him.
       What happened next turned him into a national symbol of the 
     human toll of Mr. Duterte's war.
       When she heard he had been shot, Mr. Siaron's wife, 
     Jennilyn Olayres, ran into the street, burst through police 
     lines and collapsed next to him on the asphalt. The 
     photographer snapped the picture: a distraught woman cradling 
     her lifeless husband under a streetlight, a Pieta of the 
     Manila slums.
       The police have not commented publicly about the case and 
     have not accused Mr. Siaron of selling drugs.
       ``My husband was a simple man,'' Ms. Olayres said at his 
     wake several days later. ``He may have used drugs, but he was 
     not violent and never bothered anyone. His only concern was 
     looking for passengers so we can eat three meals a day.''
       During his speech to Congress, Mr. Duterte dismissed the 
     photo, which had appeared on the front page of The Philippine 
     Daily Inquirer the previous day under the banner headline 
     ``Thou shall not kill.''
       ``There you are sprawled on the ground, and you are 
     portrayed in a broadsheet like Mother Mary cradling the dead 
     cadaver of Jesus Christ,'' he said. ``That's just drama.''
       But if the antidrug campaign has targeted people on the 
     margins of society, Mr. Siaron is an apt symbol.
       ``We're small people, insignificant,'' Ms. Olayres said 
     through sobs as she stood next to her husband's coffin. ``We 
     may be invisible to you, but we are real. Please stop the 
     killings.''

                          ____________________