Duterte a serial killer, unfit to lead: Senator

manila — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a “serial killer” who should be forced out of office, one of his chief critics said on Tuesday, as she faced arrest on drug charges she insisted were meant to silence her.

Senator Leila de Lima invoked a famous “People Power” revolution that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos three decades ago, in her strongest comments yet against Duterte and his drug war that has claimed thousands of lives.

“There is no more doubt that our president is a murderer and sociopathic serial killer,” De Limasaid, as she called on cabinet to declare him unfit to lead, and asked ordinary Filipinos to voice their opposition to his rule.

De Lima said the constitution allowed for a majority in his cabinet to force him to step down by ruling that he was mentally incapacitated, and urged it to do so.

If the cabinet members did not, De Lima referred to the mass uprising that ended the “iron fist” of Marcos’s dictatorship in 1986.

“Now the time has come again for us to be brave and stand up to another criminal dictator and his evil regime,” De Lima said.

The government last week charged De Lima, a former national human rights commissioner, with orchestrating a drug trafficking ring when she was justice secretary in the previous administration.

De Lima, 57, her supporters and rights groups have said the charges against her are manufactured to silence her. —