Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte gave his nation’s police a new order on Monday: “Kill the idiots.”
The man who once said “son of a b-h” journalists are fair game for assassination and endorsed vigilante killings for drug dealers added to his list of targets while speaking to a police chief he was sending in to a drug-infested city.
“Your duty requires you to overcome the resistance of the person you are arresting … [if] he resists, and it is a violent one … you are free to kill the idiots, that is my order to you,” the president told Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido, Reuters reported.
According to media in the Philippines, Chief Inspector Espenido was being assigned to Iliolo City, which the president has called a hotbed of the illegal drug trade and the “most shabulized” city in the country.
Mr. Duterte, 72, rose to power after promising to show no mercy on the nation’s drug dealers.
“Most of those killed, to be frank, have done something,” Mr. Duterte said in May 2016. “You won’t be killed [by cops] if you don’t do anything wrong. The constitution can no longer help you if you disrespect a person.”
Monday’s deadly order for “idiots” came hours before he met with parents of Kian Loyd Delos Santos, a 17-year-old who was killed by anti-narcotics officers on Aug. 16.
Public outcry followed the release of CCTV footage, which showed the teen being shot in the head in an ally by a plain-clothes policemen, Reuters reported.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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