President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday announced that he was forming his own hit squads to assassinate communist rebels or sympathizers thinking of joining the rebellion against the government.
“I will create my own Sparrow,” the President said, referring to a rebel unit, which had gained notoriety for assassinations of government targets in urban areas.
“They will do nothing but look for idlers who are prospective New People’s Army (NPA) members and take them out,” the President said hours after declaring a “full-scale war” on communist rebels.
His instructions to what he described as his “Duterte Death Squad,” the President said, was “get one or two” rebels.
“I’m OK with that,” he said. “I will match their talent in assassinating people.”
Soldiers audience
The President made the remarks in a speech before soldiers at Camp Rajah Sikatuna in Carmen, Bohol, for the turnover of houses for soldiers and policemen.
The President has repeatedly warned of the return of NPA hit squads.
“They will have firearms, surely,” he said of his planned assassination teams.
“That’s what I plan to do. Do not allow your back to be open,” he said.
The President said his assassins would be armed civilians, who were not from the community and would be posted in public places like transport terminals.
“They will loiter at the terminals,” he said.
He said the death squads would be an advantage in his war on rebels.
The hit squads, he added, could also go after drug suspects “since it’s a national security matter.”
“Shoot to kill,” the President said.
‘Shoot him in the back’
“If they resist violently. If you believe your life is in danger, shoot. If you believe in good faith that you might be one-upped in pulling out your gun, then shoot,” the President added.
“If you are behind that animal, then shoot him in the back,” he said.
Hours after the President declared a full-scale war on communist rebels, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison replied with equal bravado, saying: “You want war? Bring it on.”
Sison said the NPA, armed wing of CPP, was ready to respond to the President with nationwide offensives on government targets “because he wants an all-out war.”
“He already killed the peace talks,” Sison said in a Facebook interview.
Bankrupt
Sison said the Duterte administration was bound to fail because the government was “financially bankrupt.”
He said the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police “now are not capable of producing troops or forces to fight NPA.”
Lt. Col. Ezra Balagtey, speaking for the Eastern Mindanao Command, said Sison’s threat was empty as a nationwide offensive by rebels did not have the people’s support. —With reports from Germelina Lacorte, Mart Sambalud and Delfin T. Mallari Jr.