Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte threatens to kill corrupt police in live TV tirade
On same day a large shipment of methamphetamine is seized, Philippine president tells police if they make a mistake, ‘I’ll ask that you be killed’
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to kill corrupt police, including those accused of involvement in illegal drugs and other crimes, in an expletives-laden encounter on live television.
Duterte’s tirade on Tuesday came the same day that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency announced one of its largest seizures of methamphetamine, a part of Duterte’s controversial crackdown on drugs.
More than 100 police, many of them facing administrative and criminal complaints including rape, kidnapping and robbery, were escorted to the presidential palace to meet Duterte, police officials said.
The national police, which Duterte once called “corrupt to the core,” have been undergoing an internal cleansing since they were removed twice from the president’s crackdown on illegal drugs last year due to reports of abuses.
Duterte later allowed them to rejoin drug raids, partly because the small lead anti-narcotics agency lacks personnel and firepower to quell the drug menace.
“If you’ll stay like this, son of a bitch, I will really kill you,” Duterte told the policemen in the dressing-down broadcast by local TV networks.