When Rodrigo Duterte warned people, “don’t vote for me because it will be bloody”, he won the Philippine presidency by a landslide with 16.6 million votes. He had tapped into public anger, fear and helplessness against rising crime.
After two months in office, Duterte’s drug war has resulted in 1,900 deaths – 750 of them caused by policemen who said they acted in “self-defence” during “buy and bust” operations. The rest of the dead, murdered by unidentified men, are considered “deaths under investigation”, Police Director General Ronald de la Rosa told a Senate probe this week. Government critics say “DUIs” are extrajudicial or vigilante killings.
Body count: 35 people killed every day in Duterte’s drug war
These unexplained killings have been laid at Duterte’s doorstep, since he has repeatedly encouraged killings as a way to solve nagging problems. Two years ago, while mayor of Davao City, he told rice smugglers to stop or “I will really kill you, I’m not joking.”
On August 18, he told citizens who were being made to go back and forth by government officials for processing their papers, “shoot them. I’ll take care of you, really”.
Before this, he had called China’s Xi Jinping (習近平) “a great president”.
