In his first press conference since winning the May 9 elections in a landslide, the tough-talking mayor of southern Davao city said late on Sunday security forces would be given “shoot-to-kill” orders and that citizens would learn to fear the law.

“I expect you to obey the laws so there will be no chaos. I will hit hard on drugs and I promise them [criminals] hell,” Duterte said in wide-ranging comments to reporters at a Davao hotel on his vision for the nation once he is sworn into office on June 30.

Duterte also vowed to roll out Davao law-and-order measures on a nationwide basis, including a 2am curfew on drinking in public places and a ban on children walking on the streets alone late at night. Smoking in restaurants and hotels will also be banned.

Duterte said a central part of his war on crime would be to bring back the death penalty, which was abolished under then-president Gloria Arroyo in 2006.

“What I will do is urge Congress to restore [the] death penalty by hanging,” said Duterte, 71.

Duterte said he wanted capital punishment reintroduced for a wide range of crimes, particularly drugs, but also rape, murder and robbery.

He said he preferred death by hanging to a firing squad because he did not want to waste bullets, and because he believed snapping the spine with a noose was more humane.

The centrepiece of Duterte’s stunningly successful election campaign strategy was a pledge to end crime within three to six months of being elected.

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Duterte vowed during the campaign to kill tens of thousands criminals, outraging his critics but hypnotising tens of millions of Filipinos fed up with rampant crime and graft.

He said on one occasion that 100,000 people would die, and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that the fish would grow fat from feeding on them.

Duterte said Sunday his “shoot-to-kill” orders would be given for those involved in organised criminals or who resisted arrest.

“If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police [will be] to shoot to kill. Shoot to kill for organised crime. You heard that? Shoot to kill for every organised crime,” he said.

Duterte said the military as well as the police would be used in his war on crime.

“I need the military to pitch. I need military officers who are sharpshooters and snipers. It’s true. If you [criminals] fight, I will have a sniper shoot you,” he said.

On his ban on children walking alone late at night, Duterte warned the parents of repeat offenders would be arrested and thrown into jail for “abandonment”.

Tough talk notwithstanding, Duterte must also put his money were his mouth is.

The Philippines had one police officer for every 651 people in 2012, according to official data. Its force is far more stretched across an archipelago than neighbouring Thailand with a 1:302 ratio and Malaysia with 1:267 in the same year.

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The government budgeted 88.1 billion pesos (US$1.89 billion) for the police this year, up around 13 per cent from 2015. A senior police official said it was still too little for the force of about 160,000 officers.

“We lack patrol cars and secure radios,” said the official, who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media. “We want to issue a gun for every police officer but those recruited after 2012 will have to wait a bit.”

Like other police officers questioned for this story, he declined to say who he had voted for, but added: “Of course we like what we have heard so far from him [Duterte].”

Duterte has promised to double police pay, which for some officers is as low as 18,000 Pesos (US$390) a month. Asked how the government will fund this, Duterte spokesman Peter Lavina said: “We will find a way.”

He added that a new detachment to fight drug crime would be set up, and corrupt officers would be fired from the force.

Duterte also wants to set up command centres for security cameras in cities around the country that are modelled on a state-of-the-art crime reporting hub in Davao City.

Yet the current president, Benigno Aquino, warned repeatedly during the election campaign that Duterte was a dictator in the making and would bring terror to the nation.

His preferred successor, Mar Roxas, an establishment politician who promised to continue Aquino’s slow but steady macroeconomic reforms, ended in a distant second place.

Duterte has been accused of running vigilante death squads during his more than two decades as mayor of Davao, a city of about two million people that he says he has turned into one of the nations safest.

Rights groups say the squads - made up of police, hired assassins and ex-communist rebels - have killed more than 1,000 people.

They say children and petty criminals were among the victims.

Duterte boasted on one occasion during the campaign of being behind the squads, saying they killed 1,700 people. But other times he denied any involvement.

Captain Rommel Anicete, chief of the Manila police district’s homicide division, said he and his men have been buying their own bullets since the 1990s.

The incoming president has made it clear that he is no friend of human rights groups and corruption watchdogs that investigate the police’s battles against criminal gangs.

“That should boost police morale,” said Anicete. “I think criminals will be afraid, especially those involved in drugs.”