NAVY ANNIVERSARY President Duterte takes a closer look at the Philippine Navy fleet during the service command’s 120th anniversary program at Coconut Palace. In a speech marking the event later in Cebu, he reiterated his position that drugs “will destroy the nation.” —MALACAÑANG PHOTO
In his latest threat in his bloody antidrug campaign, President Duterte warned people in Cebu province who had enriched themselves by trading illegal drugs to find a way to be arrested and stay in jail if they wanted to live longer.
The President issued the warning in a televised speech on Tuesday, noting that many in Cebu who became rich through illegal drugs even flaunt their wealth.
“You know, if I were you guys in Cebu, stay in jail. Look for your own reason to be in jail. Do not go out of the facility. It would not be healthy for you,” the President said in a speech on the 120th anniversary of the Philippine Navy.
Killed during detention
There has been at least one high-profile drug suspect, however, who was shot dead by police in his jail cell in what was believed to be a rubout.
Police killed Mayor Rolando Espinosa inside a jail in Leyte province in 2016 in what they said was a gunfight, but government investigators declared it a murder.
Murder complaints against an officer and his men involved in the alleged shootout were later downgraded to a lesser charge of homicide that allowed them to be released on bail and reinstated in the force.
The President said it would be difficult to arrest a drug user or trafficker because an illegal drug was a “merchandise that you have to be caught with it in your control.”
He said some of those who got rich from the drug trade flaunted their wealth as if they were “righteous” people “just because there is no evidence, although you’re the ones responsible.”
Promise to policemen
In his speech that initially touched on terrorism and the South China Sea territorial disputes, the President veered to his antidrug campaign, reiterating his position that drugs “will destroy the nation.”
He said his drug war involved both the police and the military because their mandates were to “protect the people and preserve the nation.”
He repeated his promise that he would not allow a single policeman or soldier to go to jail for performing his duty in the war on drugs.
But he issued a veiled threat to law enforcers involved in drugs while acknowledging that the Philippine National Police had been infiltrated by criminals.
“I’m just warning them that if you are into it, you will be the first to go,” he said.
“And to all of those criminals out there, to all those rogue policemen and all creating hell for us, I have yet sufficient time to correct all of these things,” said the President, a former government prosecutor and mayor.
“You might not like the way how I correct things but I would just love to warn you that there is no turning back on this and I am there in the drug war in front,” he said.
4,251 dead in sweeps
In a report, the PNP said that as of April 30, police officers had killed 4,251 suspected drug offenders in alleged gunfights during antidrug sweeps.
Most of those killed, however, were from impoverished communities. Human rights watchdogs have cited much higher death tolls, which the government disputes.
The President denies condoning extrajudicial killings and has lashed out at critics, including former US President Barack Obama, Western governments and UN human rights officials, who have raised alarm over the drug killings and threats to human rights.
On Friday, the President disclosed that he wanted to reply to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein’s critical remarks in March but was advised to keep quiet at the time by his national security adviser, who told him that Zeid was royalty from Jordan, which was providing two assault helicopters to the Philippines.
Zeid has suggested that the President “needs to submit himself to some sort of psychiatric evaluation” over his “unacceptable” remarks against some top human rights defenders. —With a report from AP