Police win bounties for killing Philippines criminals

Mayor offers his officers £700 incentive amid fears that the president-elect has begun a vigilante era

THE mayor of a large Philippine city has vowed to pay a £700 bounty to police officers for killing criminals, stoking fears that the election of a toughtalking president will usher in an era of vigilante justice. Tomas Osmeña, the new leader of Cebu City, said that he will give officers 50,000 pesos for each wrongdoer killed “in the line of duty” as well as protect them from prosecution.

The reward is more than three times the basic pay for a patrol officer and has fuelled criticism by human rights groups that populist politicians will encourage a wave of extrajudicial killings by security forces.

Rodrigo Duterte won a landslide victory in this month’s presidential elections after pledging to wipe out crime within six months and predicted that 100,000 wrongdoers would die when he ordered a “shoot-to-kill” crackdown.

He is the long-serving mayor of Davao where he earned the nicknames of “the Punisher” and “Duterte Harry” for his harsh law-and-order policies in a city once called the country’s “murder capital”.

During his reign, vigilante death squads were associated with the street killings of more than 1,000 criminal suspects and drug dealers.

Mr Osmeña, the grandson of a former president who will take control of the country’s fifth largest city, has apparently drawn inspiration from the Duterte message.

He said that he will also pay officers for each criminal who is wounded.

“If you kill a criminal in the line of duty, you’ll be rewarded, no questions asked,” he said. “I’m there to assist the police, not to prosecute them.

“That is my purpose: to instil fear in the criminals. If they want to commit crimes, they get into war with me. I will see to it that there will be casualties.”

When asked if such rewards might encourage vigilante killings, he re- sponded: “I’m not going vigilantes.”

Mr Osmeña has already given a reward this week of nearly $400 to a Cebu policeman who wounded two robbers in a shoot-out, officials said.

Mr Duterte’s spokesman, Salvador Panelo, said the new president would not allow extrajudicial killings, though he did not condemn the bounties.

“Maybe mayor Osmeña is just joking, attempting a new gimmick so that his administration will be popular,” he said, adding: “To each his own.” During the election campaign, Mr Duterte said that he would make the fish of Manila Bay fat with the bodies of criminals and offered to “butcher” a criminal.

Human Rights Watch said that paying money for police to kill criminal suspects was a repugnant attempt to legitimise secret death squads.

“Filipinos, who over the years have made great sacrifices for accountability and rule of law, should resist these moves by their politicians,” the New York-based organisation said.

Mr Duterte has said that he will push for the reintroduction of the death penalty after he takes office on June 30.