‘If they resist, kill them all’: Philippine candidate Rodrigo Duterte doubles down on brutal anti-crime message
The 71-year-old mayor of Davao is the surprise favourite in the race to succeed President Benigno Aquino.
Philippine presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday renewed his vow to kill criminals as the tough-talking favourite hit the stump in the capital heading into the home stretch of a controversial campaign.
Seen by fans and foes alike as a real-life “Dirty Harry” from a southern city made infamous by shadowy vigilante death squads, the 71-year-old mayor of Davao is the surprise favourite in the race to succeed President Benigno Aquino.
“The drug pushers, kidnappers, robbers, find them all and arrest them. If they resist, kill them all,” he told about 2,000 people who cheered and shook their fists during a central Manila rally shortly after midnight. “Go ahead and charge me with murder, so I could also kill you.”
Go ahead and charge me with murder, so I could also kill you
Duterte had earlier pledged to kill 100,000 criminals and dump so many in Manila Bay that the “fish will grow fat” from feeding on them.
More than 50 million people in the mainly Catholic Asian nation are qualified to vote on May 9 with Duterte holding a clear lead over four other candidates, including Aquino’s preferred successor.
Analysts say Duterte’s profanity-laced campaign resonates in a chaotic, high-crime society with limited opportunities for a vast underclass working for a tiny elite.
This was despite having called Pope Francis a “son of a bitch” and making crass comments about the jailhouse rape of an Australian lay Christian missionary who was killed in a 1989 prison riot in Duterte’s own city.