“Even if I wanted to, I can not kill them all because the last report would be this thick”, Duterte said this week, displaying a new police list of drug suspects that he said includes many village chieftains, town mayors and provincial governors.
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President Rodrigo Duterte gives a speech during his visit to the 9th Infantry Division Spear Troopers at Camp Elias Angeles in Camarines Sur on September 21, 2016.
The crackdown has drawn severe criticism from the United States, the European Union parliament and the United Nations over what they say are extrajudicial killings.
“And then European Union has the gall to condemn me? I will ask them one by one in an open forum”, Duterte said.
Duterte’s war on drugs has seen more than 3,000 people killed since he was inaugurated on June 30, and has drawn widespread condemnation from global rights groups.
The Philippines is a Roman Catholic-majority country and the church does not approve of President Duterte’s call for violence.
Without directly blaming the government, the European Union lawmakers said they believed Duterte’s incendiary public statements encouraged mass murders involving drug traffickers and users.
More than 3,500 people – or about 47 people per day – have been killed in the past 10 weeks in connection with the illegal drugs trade, almost two thirds by unknown assailants and the rest in police operations, according to local police.
De Lima will continue to serve on the committee, but will be replaced as its chair by Senator Richard Gordon – who recently called for Philippine law enforcement to be allowed to make arrests without warrants. They all blame the Philippine President for extrajudicial killings. But who did I kill?
Duterte has made a series of controversial pronouncements only to retract them later, with his aides saying his remarks were “merely rhetoric” or “hyperbole”.
“We can not achieve drug-free but aiming for a drug-resistant Philippines is possible”, he said. I repeat it, f-ck you. “My first question to the rapporteur: I killed thousands?”
State Department spokesman John Kirby said in response that the US was “not aware of any official communication by the Philippine government to that that effect and to seek that result”, but was aware of Duterte’s comments.
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New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week said the United Nations should look into the Philippines drugs war and be allowed to interview witnesses.
