Harry Roque said that as of September 30, authorities have been investigating 2,243 incidents with "drug-related motives".

He added that the "President himself made a clear stance that any violation committed by the police during operations would be dealt with accordingly.

"Accountability is essential to good governance," he added.

Roque said that the government is one with the Church in the "true healing of this nation that has long been divided by politics."

He said they wanted to build a better relationship with the Catholic Church.

They would like to have the cooperation of its leaders and are calling on Catholics to pro-actively help the government in its anti-illegal drug campaign.

He added that one area in which the Chuch could help was the rehabilitation and treatment of drug dependents.

At a forum in Quezon City on Saturday, the Philippines Catholic Bishops' Conference (CBCP) and various sectoral and church groups announced their plan of a holding a 33-day period of religious activities meant to amplify their call to stop extrajudicial killings in the country.

The activities began with Mass at the Shrine of Mary, Queen of Peace, Our Lady of EDSA, in Manila on Sunday

The CBCP is asking people to pray the rosary for 33 days until the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8.

This new campaign follows an earlier 40-day "mourning period" that culminated on November 2, All Souls' Day, with a symbolic tolling of bells and lighting of candles for thousands of people killed in President Rodrigo Duterte's 16-month war on drugs.

Source

• Reuters
• GMA News
• GMA news
• Image: Dailypedia

"All the strength of the Catholic Church must be used to support the fight against drug abuse," said Archbishop Agustinus Agus of Pontianak, based in the capital of West Kalimantan province.

According to Archbishop Agus, a massive movement is needed to tackle drug abuse in the provinces. "And the Catholic Church must take part in it," he said, adding that the church will offer counselling programs and continually raise awareness about the problem.

Through the use of digital media, drugs have managed to spread into remote areas in Kalimantan, Archbishop Agus told ucanews.com after a meeting of Dayak leaders April 7 in Pontianak.

"Drugs lead their users to doing criminal acts, and this worries local people," he said.

The Dayak people have traditionally lived in riverside or hilly areas of Borneo, an island which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei.

Many Dayaks converted to Christianity since the 19^th century.

West Kalimantan Governor Cornelis, who is also the chairman of the National Assembly of Dayak Tribes, said that drug trafficking in his province was worse than other Kalimantan province because it borders with Malaysia's state of Sarawak.

"As a border area, we are prone to drug trafficking. We are also prone to terrorism," said Cornelis.

Source

• ucanews.com
• Image: abc.net.au

"Pablo Escobar said to me: 'One shot to the head isn't enough. It has to be two shots, just above the eyes.'"

Jhon Velásquez, nicknamed "Popeye," is sitting on a white plastic chair in the prison yard. "You can survive one shot, but never two. I cut up the bodies and threw them in the river. Or I just left them there. I often drove through Medellín, where I kidnapped and raped women. Then I shot them and threw them in the trash."

Three guards are standing next to him. He is the only prisoner in the giant building. The watchtower, the security door systems, the surveillance cameras — it's all for him. The warden of the Cómbita maximum-security prison, a three-hour drive northeast of the Colombian capital Bogotá, has given Popeye one hour to tell his story.

The experience is like opening a door into hell.

Popeye was the right-hand man of Pablo Escobar, head of Colombia's Medellín cartel. Until his death in 1993, Escobar was the most powerful drug lord in the world. He industrialized cocaine production, controlled 80 percent of the global cocaine trade and became one of the richest people on the planet. The cartel ordered the killings of 30 judges, about 450 police officers and many more civilians. As Escobar's head of security, Popeye was an expert at kidnapping, torture and murder.

Velásquez acquired the nickname Popeye while working as a cabin boy in the Colombian navy. He kidnapped Andrés Pastrana, the then-candidate for mayor of Bogotá and later president. He obtained the weapon that was used to fatally shoot Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in 1989. He was involved in a bombing attack that was intended to kill former Colombian President César Gaviria. Popeye, acting on the orders of Escobar, El Patrón, even had his beauty-queen girlfriend Wendy murdered. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: The Blaze