Incoming President Rodrigo Duterte INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
CEBU CITY—Incoming President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday reiterated at a victory party in this city that he was going to order the killing of pushers.
In a 42-minute address, Duterte told the audience of about 10,000 that he could not take all pushers and addicts off the streets and put them in jail or rehabilitation centers.
“Now I see children as young as one year old, 12 years old, being raped and dumped. I have a grandchild. Can I be assured my grandchild will not become an addict? Can I really prevent things from happening if I am no longer around to prevent it,” he added.
He said that killing was not right but he wished to be honest about how he wanted to address the problem of illegal drugs.
“This is why I am very mad, this is why I want to ensure this next generation, this is why I can’t make you understand, if I can’t ask you, I will really kill you,” he said in Cebuano.
Duterte arrived here just after 5 p.m. Saturday to attend the wedding of a businessman-friend’s daughter at Shangri-La’s Mactan Island Resort and Spa in Lapu-Lapu City.
He arrived at the Sugbo Grounds at the South Road Properties past 10 p.m. and he spoke to the crowd about an hour later. He left after midnight, taking a private plane back to Davao City.
His speech to his supporters, peppered with his trademark cuss words, focused on his plans for solving the problems of illegal drugs and corruption plaguing the country.
Duterte said the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency had told him there were more than three million addicts all over the country.
Ready for SC explanation
He said he might be called by the Supreme Court but he had a ready explanation.
“Judge, they asked for it. I had long warned them in Cebu to stop using drugs. Now they still had not stopped. They asked for their own death, not me,” he said.
Duterte also warned police officers who were protectors of illegal drug rings to stop or they might “go to hell, go to heaven or go somewhere else.”
He advised those involved in the illegal drug trade to look for other jobs.
Otherwise, he said, he was apologizing this early to the families of any drug pushers or addicts who might get killed in his campaign.
The President-elect said he could bring more investments into the country if criminality, which starts with drug addiction, was stopped.
To help end corruption, he said, he planned to put up 12 phone lines through which the public could call him directly and report the corrupt practices of government officials and employees.
“If you want to help the country, now is the time. I will listen to your stories,” he said.
He also warned the people in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs to stop their corrupt practices.
“P******na ninyo, pakauwawan gyud ta mo (Sons of bitches, you better stop or I will humiliate you),” he said.
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