Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (C) speaks to journalists in Davao City on June 2, 2016. (Manman Dejeto/AFP/Getty Images)
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine president-elect has
encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging
citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and
fight back in their neighborhoods.
In a nationally televised speech late Saturday, Rodrigo Duterte told a
huge crowd in the southern city of Davao that Filipinos who help him
battle crime will be rewarded.
“Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you
have the gun—you have my support,” Duterte said, warning of an extensive
illegal drug trade that involves even the country’s police.
If a drug dealer resists arrest or refuses to be brought to a police
station and threatens a citizen with a gun or a knife, “you can kill
him,” Duterte said. “Shoot him and I’ll give you a medal.”
The 71-year-old Duterte won the May 9 presidential election on a bold
promise to end crime and corruption within six months of the start of
his presidency. That vow resonated among crime-weary Filipinos, though
police officials considered it campaign rhetoric that was impossible to
accomplish.
Human rights watchdogs have expressed alarm that his anti-crime drive may lead to widespread rights violations.
Duterte, a longtime Davao mayor, has been suspected of playing a role
in many killings of suspected criminals in his city by
motorcycle-riding assassins known as the “Davao death squads,” but human
rights watchdogs say he has not been criminally charged because nobody
has dared to testify against him in court
In his speech on Saturday, Duterte asked three police generals based
in the main national police camp in the capital to resign for
involvement in crimes that he did not specify. He threatened to
humiliate them in public if they did not quit and said he would order a
review of dismissed criminal cases of active policemen, suggesting some
may have bribed their way back onto the force.
“They go back again crucifying the Filipino,” he said. “I won’t agree to that.”
“If you’re still into drugs, I will kill you, don’t take this as a
joke. I’m not trying to make you laugh … I will really kill you,”
Duterte said to loud jeers and applause.
The foul-mouthed former government prosecutor said crimes were
committed by law enforcers because of “extreme greed and extreme need.”
He said that he would provide a small amount to an officer who was
tempted because his wife has cancer or a mother died, but that those who
would break the law because of extreme greed “will also be dealt with
by me. I’ll have you killed.”
Duterte, who starts his six-year presidential term on June 30,
repeated a plan to offer huge bounties to those who can turn in drug
lords, dead or alive.
While it remains to be seen what will happen to his threats when he
takes office, some policemen have heeded his call for a tougher
anti-crime approach.
In suburban Las Pinas city in the Manila metropolis, police have
apprehended more than 100 minors who defied a night curfew, and men who
were either having drinking sprees in public or roaming around shirtless
in violation of a local ordinance. The crackdown was dubbed “Oplan
Rody”—after Duterte’s nickname—or “Rid the Streets of Drinkers and
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