“Gago ka (Fool)!”
That’s how President Rodrigo Duterte hit back on Wednesday at his predecessor, former President Benigno Aquino III, for questioning the effectiveness of his campaign against illegal drugs.
In his speech on the occasion of the 113th anniversary of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the President also lashed out at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“P-Noy said it’s as if nothing happened [in the antidrug campaign]. Go into drugs, P-Noy, and see if I don’t behead you, you fool. Why are you saying nothing happened?” Mr. Duterte said.
Mr. Duterte said Aquino’s police officials and the aide of the Liberal Party’s defeated presidential candidate Mar Roxas were involved in the narcotics trade.
“No. 1 is your protégé, General Loot, that fool,” he said, referring to retired Chief Supt. Vicente Loot, formerly police director for Eastern Visayas and now mayor of Daanbantayan in Cebu province.
Results of war campaign
Talking to reporters after a Mass held at Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City commemorating the eighth anniversary of the death of his mother, President Corazon Aquino, Mr. Aquino said that in 2015, there were 1.8 million drug users in the Philippines.
At the end of 2016, he said, the number of drug users in the country remained 1.8 million.
“It seems nothing happened,” Aquino said.
Malacañang responded on Wednesday, dishing out figures to show how effective Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs had been.
Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said the war on drugs had resulted in the surrender of more than 1.3 million drug users.
He said 96,703 drug suspects were arrested during the first year of the campaign, compared with 77,810 arrested during Aquino’s six-year term.
Kim is ‘a son of a bitch’
Mr. Duterte, chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this year, did not spare North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is sending his foreign minister to Manila to attend a regional summit this weekend.
He called Kim a “fool” and a “son of a bitch” for pursuing a nuclear program.
Mr. Duterte held nothing back in rebuking Kim for “playing with dangerous toys,” setting the stage for Asean foreign ministers summit on Sunday.
Drug haul
In a talk with reporters after his speech at the BIR, Mr. Duterte said only 3,045 kg of shabu were confiscated by the authorities during Aquino’s six years in office.
But his administration, just a year old, has already seized nearly 3,000 kg of shabu, he said.
In his speech at the BIR event, Mr. Duterte said he was only joking when he threatened to abolish the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), a constitutional body.
“This human rights … I said I was just kidding when I said I will abolish you. I need Congress to do that. I got a lecture from the fools, saying I can’t just do that. I know,” he said.
Mr. Duterte has been lashing out at the CHR for expressing concern over extrajudicial killings in his brutal war on drugs.
He said he was also just kidding when he said law enforcers should not appear in the Office of the Ombudsman for investigation without his permission.
His statement, he said, was an offshoot of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ remarks in an interview on Japanese television that he was “goading people to kill people.”
“I said criminal. There is no law made here or in heaven that says you cannot kill an idiot or criminal destroying your country or your people,” he said.
Ozamiz raid
Mr. Duterte also defended the warrant raid by police that resulted in the death of Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., the mayor’s wife and brother and 13 others early on Sunday.
He said warrants could be executed at any time, as drug trade was usually carried out at night.
Nobody will be so stupid as to trade drugs in broad daylight, he added.
“I will stand by the police there. Nobody unloads shabu during the day, in public view. That’s crazy. Don’t follow that. I will answer for it. I ordered it,” he said.
Mr. Duterte also dismissed criticism that the operation against the Parojinogs was an overkill.
“The police and the military should make sure that their enemies are dead. Otherwise, if the other guy can still pull the trigger, you would end up a dead policeman or dead military soldier,” he said.
Mr. Duterte also said he was ready to formally end peace talks with the communist rebels.
He said there was nothing more to discuss with the insurgents and he did not want to waste his time talking with them.
Asked if he would issue a formal notice of termination of the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Mr. Duterte replied: “I said I don’t want it anymore. So is there any other protocol that I have to comply with before it becomes final?” —With reports from Nestor Corrales and Wires