\n Mary Ann Pajo watched quietly as cemetery workers opened her son's tomb in Manila this week and removed his body for examination by a forensic pathologist.\n<\/p>\n
\n Accused of dealing drugs, 30-year-old Joewarski Pajo was shot dead while playing a game on his phone, one of thousands of extrajudicial killings alleged to have taken place under former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.\n<\/p>\n
\n A hearing begins at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday that will determine whether Duterte will stand trial over at least 76 of those deaths.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This hearing is what we have been waiting for,\" Father Flavie Villanueva said after saying a prayer over Joewarski's remains, the 126th body his non-profit group has exhumed as potential evidence.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It is important that (Duterte) faces the court in person, physically, for us to see if there is remorse on his part,\" said Villanueva, a fierce critic of the former president's so-called drug war.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, Duterte's presence now appears unlikely. The octogenarian's lawyers filed a request on Wednesday waiving his right to appear, even via videolink.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I am old, tired, and frail,\" Duterte said in the filing.\n<\/p>\n
\n Villanueva called the decision cowardly when reached on Thursday, noting that Duterte had already been declared fit to stand trial.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Accountability is something this person has no concept of,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'They are not God' -\n<\/p>\n
\n At a Manila coffee shop staffed by family members of those killed in the drug war, three employees told AFP they believed justice would not have been possible in the Philippines.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"No one in the Philippines can lay hands on Duterte, much less file cases against him,\" said Lydjay Acopio, whose three-year-old daughter Myca was killed in a police raid on the home she shared with her father.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fellow barista Rosalie Saludo agreed: \"As long as his daughter (Vice President Sara Duterte) is in office, as long as his allies are in office, he can still find a way to twist and distort justice.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Sara Duterte announced her 2028 presidential candidacy on Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mary Grace Garganta, manager of the coffee shop, said she had been forced to move after police without a warrant shot and killed her father in 2016. She was afraid of what might happen to family members \"now that I'm speaking up\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I won't deny that my father was involved in drugs, but that was not a reason to kill him,\" she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"They are not God to take away a life.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Things were better' -\n<\/p>\n
\n The number of Filipinos who believe Duterte should be tried at the ICC has slipped to 44 percent, a November survey by Manila-based WR Numero showed, down from 62 percent in April.\n<\/p>\n
\n While the new numbers still indicate a shift from the historically high approval rates he enjoyed in office, a significant percentage of his countrymen maintain Duterte did nothing wrong.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If Duterte committed a wrongdoing... he only did it for the good of the country,\" Jovel Manzano, 34, told AFP on a busy Manila street this week.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"What's the point of our courts here if we're always relying on other countries?\" he said of the looming ICC hearing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If a Filipino commits a crime, he should be tried here,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Jessa Cangayaw, a 30-year-old massage therapist, said she had no qualms about Duterte's crackdown, provided those being killed were \"bad people\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Things were better then than they are now,\" she said, adding that she felt less safe when walking home.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Sheerah Escudero, whose teenage brother's bullet-riddled body was found in 2017, said Monday's hearing marked a step towards \"accountability\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have a broken judicial system,\" the 28-year-old told reporters this week, saying Philippine authorities had mounted \"no credible investigation\" into the allegations against Duterte.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It has been dark for a very long time, but now we are seeing the light.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mary Ann Pajo watched quietly as cemetery workers opened her son's tomb in Manila this week and removed his body for examination by a forensic pathologist. Accused of dealing drugs, 30-year-old Joewarski Pajo was shot dead while playing a game on his phone, one of thousands of extrajudicial killings alleged to have taken place under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-155515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n