MANILA (Agencies): “I welcome you and if you want to find me guilty, so be it. Find a country where they kill people with a firing squad. And I’m ready,” said the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, reacting to the announcement on February 1 that the International Criminal Court (ICC) will conduct a “preliminary examination” into killings in the Philippines linked to the government’s war on drugs.
 

MANILA (UCAN): In what looks like payback for supporting his presidential run, Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, named Eduardo Manalo, executive minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church), special envoy for Filipino migrants’ concerns.
 
In an appointment paper dated February 13, the presidential palace in Manila announced that Manalo would hold the position from January 30, until 29 January 2019.
 

HONG KONG (SE): “In the name of God, stop the killings! May the justice of God come upon those responsible for the killings! For the good of the country, stop the killings! The toll of ‘murders under investigation’ must stop now”, was the cry for peace from Bishop Socrates Villegas, the archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan and the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, urging the Duterte administration for a stop to the killing of drug suspects. 
 

MANILA (UCAN): The Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled on February 6 that there were sufficient grounds for the extension of military rule in the region following a terrorist attack in the city of Marawi last year.
 
“Public safety requires the extension (of martial law) as shown by facts presented by the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” the Supreme Court ruling said.
 

MANILA (UCAN): The move by the Philippines’ Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 15 to revoke the license of online news agency, Rappler, has sparked suspicion and outrage among media and human rights groups in the country.
 
The agency has been highly critical of the government of president, Rodrigo Duterte, especially the deadly war on drugs.
 

MANILA (UCAN): Circumventing the limits to terms of office established by the constitution “would be a grave moral wrong and a tremendous injustice,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan said in a pastoral statement in mid-January in which he protested the decision of the Philippine Congress to amend the constitution to extend the terms of office of elected officials.
 

Manila (UCAN): Church leaders in the Philippines warned of more killings after the national police announced the re-launching the government’s controversial anti-narcotics war.
 
Human rights groups say that the deadly drug war of the president, Rodrigo Duterte, has claimed the lives of at least 13,000 people since it began in 2016.
 

MANILA (UCAN): An upsurge in violence around The Philippines is anticipated following a decision by the president, Rodrigo Duterte, to formally declare a termination of peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front and the Communist Party.
 
The three parties have been locked in an informal war for decades which has left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes over the years.
 

MANILA (SE): The controversial president of The Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, told a gathering of boy scouts from the First Scout Ranger Regiment in San Miguel, Bulacan, that if he cannot win his pet drug war, then he may think about resigning.
 
“If I can’t hack this I will leave,” Rappler.com quoted him as saying at the gathering on November 24.