Duterte to pushers: You have 48 hours

By: 9 years ago

DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, with police and military officials, issued a 48-hour ultimatum to drug pushers to leave or be killed. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE City Information Office

DAVAO CITY—Drug pushers living in the city, particularly on Dewey Boulevard, have 48 hours to leave the city starting Monday afternoon, or they will be killed.

This was the warning issued by Mayor Rodrigo Duterte following a command conference with the police here on Monday.

“If you are into drugs, I’m warning you. I’m giving you 48 hours, 48 hours. If I see you there (Dewey), I’ll have you killed,” the mayor said.

He said he knew the identities of the drug pushers there because he had a list provided by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). “Believe me … I’m being candid about it. If I still see you there, I’ll kill you,” he said.

Duterte said he wouldn’t wait for drug peddlers to commit more crimes and would nip them as soon as the 48-hour deadline, which will expire this afternoon, was over.

If after the deadline and the identified pushers still persist, Duterte said he would not care if they were caught selling drugs at the time of a planned operation.

He said that as long as they were there, they would become fair game for the police.

“So get out now. I know where you live. I’ll finish you if you are still there,” Duterte said.

He said drug pushers could file charges against him all they want.

“You try to file a case? I’ll mow down your family too,” he said.

Duterte issued the ultimatum amid the report of the police that drug peddlers continue to thrive in the city, especially on Dewey Boulevard.

The Davao City Police Office said that from January to August this year alone, some 670 drug personalities were arrested in various police operations and some P17 million in “shabu” was seized.

Chief Insp. Milgrace Driz, city police spokesperson, said that because of the continuing operation of drug personalities, the police have relaunched a unified “Oplan Katok” on houses of suspected pushers and peddlers.

It is being supported by the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council, the PDEA and various village chairs, she said.

In 2014, a similar campaign resulted in the arrest of nearly 11,830 individuals during the 510 raids conducted in various areas of the city.

In the early days of the anticriminality campaign between 1998 and 2008 here, at least 1,000 individuals were said to have been executed by the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS).

The Commission on Human Rights and such groups as the Amnesty International blamed officials such as Duterte for the killings, saying he might have actually formed or funded the group.

The mayor has denied any links with the DDS but maintained his utmost dislike for drug pushers, repeatedly warning them to pack up and leave or die.

At one point, he also commented that he would hale a drug lord to court and shoot him there.

“It would no longer be extrajudicial killing,” he said.

The police also had another take on the killings, saying it must have been the result of intense gang rivalries.

But in August 2004, the faceless DDS took form in the person of Romeo Taysa, 38, of Matina Gravahan area here.

Taysa was arrested after shooting to death Hilario Daylo, a suspected drug peddler, outside the Ecoland Overland Terminal here, but his unidentified companion escaped.

Nothing has been heard of Taysa since. Allan Nawal, Inquirer Mindanao