Washington : Newly sworn in President of Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, while addressing a crowd in a Manila slum on the evening of his swearing-in ceremony, unleashed threats against drug traffickers and asked the people of the nation to go ahead and kill drug addicts.
“These sons of wh**** are destroying our children. I warn you, don’t go into that, even if you’re a policeman, because I will really kill you. If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful,” he said on Thursday.
Authoritarian firebrand Rodrigo Duterte, 71, won last month’s election in a landslide after a campaign dominated by threats to kill criminals and tirades against the nation’s elite.
He has also been accused of links to vigilante death squads in Davao, which rights groups say have killed more than 1,000 people and could spread across the Philippines under him.
Duterte had previously outlined a vision for his anti-crime program that included reintroducing the death penalty, reports the Guardian.
President Duterte said he would issue shoot-to-kill orders to the security services and offer them bounties for the bodies of drug dealers and also urged ordinary Filipinos to kill suspected criminals.
After his election win, Duterte also launched attack against the United Nations.
“F*** you UN, you can’t even solve the Middle East carnage … couldn’t even lift a finger in Africa [with the] butchering [of] the black people. Shut up all of you,” he said. (ANI)