1) Taking advantage of the Philippine people’s understandable concern about a high crime rate, Duterte has unleashed a wave of violence against anyone suspected of being a criminal. During his campaign, he
promised to kill so many outlaws that the “fish will grow fat” in Manila Bay from feasting on the remains. So far, more than 1,800 people
have been killed by police and vigilantes since he came into office. No trial, no evidence: just death. Human-rights advocates are aghast, and understandably so. (It was in reaction to a journalist’s question about what he would say to Obama if the American president criticized his human-rights record that Duterte uttered his witty “son of a whore” comeback.)
Horrifying cases of misconduct are coming to light — for example, the execution of two impoverished Manila residents, Renato and Jaypee Bertes, a father and son who worked odd jobs and smoked shabu, a cheap form of methamphetamine. They were arrested by police, beaten, and shot to death. “The police said the two had tried to escape by seizing an officer’s gun,” the
New York Times reported. “But a forensic examination found that the men had been incapacitated by the beatings before they were shot; Jaypee Bertes had a broken right arm.”
And just this week a self-confessed assassin testified before the Philippine Senate that he was a member of a death squad that Duterte, when he was mayor of Davao, used to kill not only “drug dealers, rapists, [purse] snatchers” but also political opponents. Some of the victims were allegedly disemboweled and dumped at sea; at least one was fed to crocodiles. In the past, Duterte has both admitted and denied running a death squad.
2) Duterte
publicly accused scores of Philippine officials and military officers of involvement in the drug trade without revealing any evidence. He gave them 24 hours to surrender or be “hunted down.”
“Due process has nothing to do with my mouth,” he said. “There are no proceedings here, no lawyers.”
3) Duterte has
justified the killing of journalists by saying, “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch.”