‘Cut off my head if Lascañas not lying’

Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa yesterday offered up his head if it can be proved that Vice President Sara Duterte had something to do with extrajudicial killings when she was mayor of Davao City.

Retired Davao police officer Arturo Lascañas, a self-proclaimed member of the so-called Davao Death Squad, has claimed that as Davao City mayor in 2012, Sara Duterte ordered law enforcement officers to abduct, kill, and bury drug suspects and make their deaths look like abductions.

Dela Rosa said Lascañas, since submitting a report to the International Criminal Court implicating former president Rodrigo Duterte in the killing of suspected drug pushers and users by state forces, has been changing his story.

“This is yet another version, now implicating Inday Sara in ‘Oplan Tokhang,’” Dela Rosa said. “This is no longer believable. I will have my neck sliced if he can prove Sara was behind that.”

The senator said Lascañas, in a previous statement, had cleared him of involvement in the extrajudicial killings and even described him as a good cop.

“Now, he is claiming that the Vice President and I were involved in ‘Oplan Tokhang,’” Dela Rosa said.

“Oplan Tokhang” refers to the operational plan “Tuktok Hangyo,” wherein police and barangay personnel visited suspected drug addicts and pushers at their houses to persuade them to surrender.

The operation was blamed for an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 deaths during the Duterte administration’s so-called war on drugs, but official government data maintained only about 7,000 were killed.

Dela Rosa said Lascañas’ latest allegation was only intended to discredit the Dutertes.

“He said before that I had nothing to do with such activities, and now he is going to implicate me again? Why does he want to [implicate] wholesale all Duterte allies and the Duterte family? He even accused Pulong (Paulo Duterte) of being behind a drug smuggling syndicate,” Dela Rosa said.