FILIPINO president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has urged members of the public who own guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest as part of his hardline stance against drug trafficking in the country.
Like most of its neighbours in Southeast Asia, The Philippines has very robust anti-drug laws but unlike say neighbouring Indonesia, it does not routinely execute offenders. However, over recent years, the Philippine police have been known to kill drug dealers in shootouts and numerous Nigerians are languishing in their jails for trafficking.
Playing to the popularity of the fight against drugs, Mr Duterte encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, saying they need to take back their neighbourhoods. In a nationally televised speech on Saturday, he told a huge crowd in the southern city of Davao that Filipinos who help him battle crime will be rewarded.
Mr Duterte said: “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support. 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.
“Shoot him and I’ll give you a medal. If you’re still into drugs, I will kill you, so don’t take this as a joke."
On May 9, Mr Duterte, 71, won the presidential elections with a bold promise to end crime and corruption within six months of the start of his presidency. That vow resonated among crime-weary Filipinos, although police officials considered it campaign rhetoric that was impossible to accomplish.
Mr Duterte, a long-time 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. 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, Mr 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.
A former government prosecutor, Mr Duterte 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 break the law because of extreme greed will also be dealt with.
In June 30, Mr Duterte starts his six-year presidential term and has promised to offer huge bounties to those who can turn in drug lords, dead or alive. Since he won the elections, in the suburban Las Pinas City in the Manila metropolis, police have apprehended more than 100 minors who defied a night curfew, as well as men who were either having drinking sprees in public or roaming around shirtless in violation of a local ordinance.
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