Duterte: I’ll shoot anyone who offers me drug money

President Rodrigo Duterte. FILE PHOTO

President Duterte on Monday warned he would shoot anyone who would try to pay him off with drug money as he denied insinuations that he acted as a “drug protector” when he reinstated a police official tagged in the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr.

“There was nothing to it. Don’t be afraid. I do not receive drug money,” the President said of his decision to lift the administrative relief of Supt. Marvin Marcos.

“I guarantee you. There was nothing wrong with it. I was just trying to figure out something there,” he said in his speech at the awarding ceremony of The Outstanding Young Men and Women in Malacañang.

Marcos is the chief of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Eastern Visayas which carried out the Nov. 5 raid on Espinosa’s prison cell which led to his killing. Espinosa is the father of self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, who is now under police custody.

Kerwin had pointed to Marcos as one of his police protectors.

Director General Ronald dela Rosa, the chief of the Philippine National Police, initially denied Mr. Duterte had directed him to reinstate Marcos.

The President, however, later admitted it was he who wanted the CIDG official returned to his post because he had placed him under surveillance.