Philippines President ‘Duterte Harry’ acts on vow to kill drug dealers
Rights groups decry death of suspects
Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who campaigned on a vow to kill 100,000 criminals, is making good on his promise less than two weeks into his term.
In that short span, he has left a bloody trail of drug world executions that is drawing alarm from human rights groups and opposition politicians.
Duterte was sworn in June 30, and within the first week of his presidency, 72 people accused of being drug dealers were killed by police and vigilante groups, according to a “Kill List” compiled by the newspaper Philippine Inquirer. Dating back to Duterte’s election victory May 10, the figure jumps to 119.
Last weekend, police reported nine more killings, including an unidentified man found in Manila with his head wrapped in tape and a cardboard sign on his torso that read, “I Am a Pusher.”
Human rights lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno, national chairman of the Free Legal Assistance Group, called the spate of killings “a nuclear explosion of violence.”
“Do we really want to give the man with the gun the power to judge who are criminals and to kill them? To decide who is bad and who is good, who deserves to live and who deserves to die?” he wrote in a blog for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
The killings also have drawn condemnation from international rights groups.
“Human Rights Watch is concerned that President Duterte’s electoral platform, which included repeated promises to kill those deemed to be criminals and drug dealers, may be interpreted by
some as a legitimization of the unlawful concept of extrajudicial killings as an acceptable approach to crime control,” said Phelim Kine, the group’s Asia deputy director. “Not only does each case need to be investigated, but it’s crucial there be an inquiry into the surge in killings since June 30 and action taken to put an end to it.”
Duterte, whose incendiary rhetoric has earned him comparisons to Donald Trump, campaigned on a platform of law and order and ending corruption.
The seven-term mayor of Da- vao, a city on the restive southern island of Mindanao, was wildly popular for solving the city’s drug and crime problems. But his tactics, which earned him nicknames such as “The Punisher” and “Duterte Harry,” included more than 1,000 extrajudicial killings using death squads, according to rights groups.
After winning the presidency in a landslide victory in May, Duterte doubled down on his tough talk. Last month, he encouraged vigilante justice against criminals and drug dealers in a televised address.
“Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support,” he said. “You can kill him. Shoot him, and I’ll give you a medal.”
Days after taking office, Duterte publicly named five highranking police officials allegedly tied to the drug trade and ordered them removed from their posts.
He named three major drug traffickers, all Chinese nationals, in a televised speech and warned that they would be executed if they remained involved in the drug trade. Two are in prison but could be operating their drug empires from behind bars.
A third was out of the country, and Duterte warned him not to return.
“The moment he steps off the plane, he will die,” Duterte said.
An opposition political leader, Sen. Leila de Lima, called last week for a legislative investigation into the spate of killings.
Duterte also has his supporters in government for his brutal approach to fighting drugs and crime in a country that has been deeply plagued by both.
A large segment of the population appears willing to give Duterte’s violent tactics a chance, according to political analyst Richard Javad Heydarian, author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The USA, China and the Struggle for the Western Pacific.
“Though liberal circles and human rights groups have expressed strong criticism in recent days, it seems much of the public is adopting a passive or wait-andsee approach, since there is a deep sense that previous administrations dedicated limited political capital to ensuring law and order,” Heydarian said.
High-ranking officials in the Duterte administration remain unbowed by the criticism of how they wage the drug war.
Solicitor General Jose Calida, the top legal official in the country, assured police Monday that he would protect them against any charges of extrajudicial killings.