Duterte warns corrupt gov’t officials: I will skin you alive

President Rodrigo Duterte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

DAVAO CITY—President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday threatened corrupt government officials he would “skin them alive”  if they did not stop their wrongdoings.

“Stop that. I will really…skin you alive,” he said in a news conference held shortly after delivering his arrival speech here in connection with his state visit to Vietnam.

Mr. Duterte said those who continue to commit mistakes will be shamed, as he did suspected drug lords and traders.

“I will read your name in public. I will ask you to resign,” he said.

“If you won’t resign, I will whisper (your name) to the addicts and I will say, that was the one who squealed on you,” Mr. Duterte said in jest.

Duterte warned corrupt government employees and officials not to “force me to place you in a very uncomfortable and awkward (situation).”

“Listen to me now. You can’t avoid me (because) my mandate is for six years. In the fullness of God’s time, if he (keeps) me alive and you are a corrupt….” he said without finishing his sentence.

The President, former mayor of Davao City, has been making unusually dark and cruel threats in the past weeks, barely three months into his term.  The international community expressed shock at a recent threat to turn into a  Hitler and slaughter three million Filipinos.

The President also said he may implement a massive purge in government if the situation did not improve.

“I promised the people a clean government, don’t embarrass me,” he said, adding that “I do not want to go into a massive purge of government workers and officials.”

“Please do not tempt me to do it,” he  said.

Mr. Duterte said the days of corruption in government, when “everybody was on the take,” was now over.

“Stop it,” he said.

To businessmen wanting to have contracts with government, including in the Defense department, Mr. Duterte said they should “not come to me to make a whisper.”

“I am not a technical man, do not come to me…go to (Defense Secretary Delfin) Lorenzana. Lorenzana will not follow me if I give him a wrong order,” he said.

Mr. Duterte also urged the public to help him identify those who were corrupt.

He said he would not mind if the complainant would not identify himself.

“Just let me know,” he said.

Duterte lamented that the image of the government abroad is that of a corrupt one but he assured businessmen in Vietnam that the days were over for money-making government officials and employees.