Rody kids troops: No coup, please

NO COUP D’ETAT, PLEASE President Duterte is making the rounds of military camps to introduce himself to the troops and to urge them not to mount a putsch against him. He jokingly tells soldiers at the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center in Quezon City that they can just tell him to leave office and he will do so. ROBINSON NIÑAL/PPD

He never promised the troops a rose garden. But just the same, if they don’t like his face anymore, they don’t have to shoot up Malacañang to drive him out. All they need to do is call.

“I am here with a specific duty: to serve the Republic. I promised you a clean government. It will be a clean government,” President Duterte told wounded soldiers at AFP Medical Center in Quezon City on Tuesday night.

A month after taking office, Mr. Duterte is making the rounds of military camps and facilities across the country to introduce himself to the troops and to rope the Armed Forces of the Philippines into his war on drugs.

He said he hoped the military would not be displeased with his actions, as many people would be affected along the way.

“I hope you won’t get mad if we’re doing the right thing. You might launch a coup d’etat and I would be out of a job. Do not launch a coup d’etat, just call me in Malacañang and say, ‘Hoy, Duterte, leave your office, we will take over,’” he joked.

“OK. Then come here and I will announce: ‘My countrymen, these are the new [leaders] of our country. This is the chairman, this would bring the new government. Goodbye. It’s all yours. I will go home,’” he added.

More than 500 people, mostly poor drug users, have been killed since Mr. Duterte launched his war on drugs upon taking office on June 30.

As of July 30, according to the Inquirer’s monitoring, 170 people have been killed by vigilantes and 355 have been slain during police operations.

The killings have sparked global alarm at human rights violations in the Philippines, and drawn calls for a congressional investigation.

But Mr. Duterte has said going to human rights advocates would not save drug dealers and pushers from death, and Sen. Leila de Lima, who has called for a Senate inquiry into the drug killings, has been threatened with investigation by the President’s allies in the House of Representatives.

Involving military

Mr. Duterte told the wounded troops that his intention was to serve the people and improve their lives and he would do so without tainting his administration with corruption.

He said the military should have teams that would go after drug traffickers.

“Every military unit should have one team—not all of them—that would be an antidrug group,” he said.

Mr. Duterte explained to troops his focus on the illegal drugs industry and called on the soldiers to help fight the scourge.

Drug users are prone to committing crimes, he said, and the intensified drive against drugs is one of the reasons why the crime rate has gone down.

“Everybody has gone into hiding, afraid to be killed,” he said.

Mr. Duterte said he did not want to kill people, but added that he could not let a few people destroy many.

“We cannot build a country by killing our own citizens. That is a given. But we cannot allow a group of men or a percentage of the civilians to destroy the youth and to destroy our country,” he said.

The President promised the soldiers a raft of benefits, including state-of-the-art medical equipment and a new medical building worth P500 million, and, eventually, free education for their children.

The government and the military must work together, he said, assuring the troops that they would get what they deserved.

In promising new medical equipment, Mr. Duterte said he would do away with the government’s practice of giving contracts to the lowest bidders, which had resulted in the state getting substandard equipment.

He said he would talk to the Commission on Audit about his position.

As he visited wounded soldiers, Mr. Duterte told them he was there to share their pain.

The President embraced 2nd Lt. Jerome Jacuba, who was blinded in a bomb explosion during an operation in Maguindanao province in March.

Peace talks with Reds

Mr. Duterte is expected to continue visiting military camps in a charm offensive that comes as his administration pursues peace talks with communist insurgents.

The President declared a unilateral ceasefire on July 25 to encourage negotiations, but he called it off five days later after the insurgents killed a militiaman and wounded four others in an ambush in Davao del Norte province and failed to reciprocate with a truce declaration of their own.

Both sides say, however, that they are still open to peace talks.