Duterte orders cops to track down Lapu-Lapu teen’s killers

PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte has ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP) to immediately track down the killers of a teen girl in Cebu, whom he said must be illegal drug users given the brutal nature of the crime. Christine Lee Silawan, a 16-year-old high school student from Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, was found dead, half-naked with multiple stab wounds and part of her face skinned to the bone on Monday morning. Mr. Duterte said while the police are looking at a possible cult, he believes the perpetrators are drug addicts. “Sabi kasi ng ano, mga pulis kulto-kulto. Sabi ko, ‘Hanapin ninyo ‘yan. Yung binalatan ‘yung ano, sabi ko drugs (The police said it is some cult, I told them to track them down, that skinning, that’s drugs),’” Mr. Duterte said in his remarks at the campaign rally of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan in F. L. Dy Memorial Coliseum in Cauayan City last Wednesday. — Arjay L. Balinbin