Philippine presidential favourite vows to 'butcher' criminals

spaminator

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Husband-wife death squad claims 800 kills
By Brad Hunter, 24 Hours
First posted: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 12:46 PM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 08:56 PM EDT
Ace and Sheila’s mandate is simple: blow away as many junkies and drug dealers as they can.
The price? $100 a pop.
The terrible twosome are just two of the death squad enforcers in Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Duterte -- the poor man’s Kim Jong Un -- has vowed to wipe the streets of his country clean of drugs. Nicknamed ‘The Punisher’, Duterte claims he’s going to kill 100,000 drug users and dump their bodies in Manila Bay.
Now, the two killers, who claim their squad is behind almost 800 murders, have given an extraordinary interview to Australia’s SBS Dateline.
“Our boss contacts us by phone and tells us we need to do a job on someone," Ace told the program.
"They might be ordinary people, but they’re all pretty much the same — drug pushers or crooks. Or they’ve crossed our boss. We bring down those types of people.
“If we find the person on their own, we go in immediately and kill him. And then get away.”
Grinding poverty drives them.
“From the beginning, when I started this, I knew it was really risky,” Ace told the network. “But if I don’t do it, there’s an even greater risk that I won’t be able to feed my family. Because I can’t do any other work.
“It’s better that I just continue with our operation. If I say no, my boss might get back at me, take revenge. I might be killed, so I just follow orders.”
Having a woman on board helps, Ace admits. Sheila can get much closer to the target.
“Sometimes I pretend to be working as a dancer in a club, as a GRO [Guest Relations Officer],” she told Dateline. “But it also depends on the target, if they’re fond of going to bars, for example. So when we’re given the identification, it depends on what their habits are. That’s my role.”
And they leave a grim reminder with the corpses that are starting to litter the country.
“When we get the chance, we put the card with the word ‘pusher’ on them,” Sheila said.
“Because the media picks it up when the card is on the target. We put the card so it attracts the media, and that’s our proof to our boss that the job is done.”
Ace adds: “I think it’s good that the users are disappearing, but it would be better if the big time dealers were gotten rid of. But for us it’s work. When there’s work there’s money.”
Police examine the body of a summary execution victim with his hands tied around his back and his head wrapped in packaging tape on October 1, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. The Duterte administration shifted to the next phase on its war on drugs after the first 100 days of President Rodrigo Duterte as over 3,700 people have been killed while more than 700,000 drug dependents surrendered to authorities. According to reports, Duterte received an "excellent" rating for his war on drugs during a recent opinion, with 84 percent of Filipinos respondents said they are satisfied with the drug crackdown. (Photo by Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images)

Husband-wife death squad claims 800 kills | World | News | Toronto Sun
 

spaminator

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Filipino mayor among 10 dead in clash with anti-drug police
The Associated Press
First posted: Friday, October 28, 2016 10:36 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, October 28, 2016 10:44 AM EDT
MAKILALA, PHILIPPINES - Two months ago, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte publicly read out the names of a town mayor and more than 150 other officials he accused of involvement in drug trafficking. On Friday, the mayor and nine of his men were killed in a clash with police, in the deadliest operation in Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown.
Police estimate that more than 3,600 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed since Duterte took office on June 30.
After his name was read out in August, Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu Saudi Ampatuan township in southern Maguindanao province turned himself in to police and denied involvement. He told the media he was fighting illegal drugs himself and supported Duterte’s crackdown.
Dimaukom and the nine others were killed at dawn Friday after they opened fire from a van and an SUV on officers manning a checkpoint in Makilala town in North Cotabato province, police Superintendent Bernard Tayong said.
“Our men were forced to retaliate when the heavily armed suspects who were on board two vehicles began firing at them,” said Senior Superintendent Albert Ignatius Ferro, who heads a police anti-illegal drugs force.
Police found an M16 rifle, four pistols, a 12-gauge shotgun, ammunition and at least 13 small plastic packs of suspected methamphetamine, a stimulant drug locally known as shabu, from the bullet-peppered vehicles of the suspects, police deputy regional chief Senior Superintendent Leonardo Suan said.
Police said they had received information that Dimaukom’s group was planning to transport a “huge” amount of methamphetamine from Davao city, Duterte’s hometown, to Datu Saudi Ampatuan town.
Duterte’s crackdown has drawn international concern over extrajudicial killings, but he has repeatedly dismissed criticisms and vowed to keep his election promise to rid the country of illegal drugs. He originally said he would do so in six months, but extended that deadline by half a year, saying he was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the drug menace.
The extent of Duterte’s crackdown is unprecedented in the country. Since he took office, police have arrested more than 31,600 drug suspects, and more than 750,000 people, mostly drug users, have surrendered to authorities, largely due to fears they could end up dead. Police have visited more than 2.6 million homes to urge suspected drug users and dealers to stop.
On Wednesday, police launched a new phase of the crackdown called Double Barrel, which they say will focus on “high-value targets” such as drug lords and those involved in largescale drug production and trafficking.
Duterte said late Thursday he still has a long list of drug suspects including politicians, village officials, judges and policemen, showing a thick pile of documents. “This is the drug industry in the Philippines,” Duterte said. “I can’t deal with this alone,” he said, appealing to the public for help.
He appeared to issue another warning, saying that thousands more drug suspects may end up dead. He expressed disgust over criticism levelled against him while he battles a drug menace that he said has left many police officers dead.
“And to say that I should behave and keep on harping on that ... I’ll tell you I will triple it,” Duterte said. “If my wishes aren’t followed ... you can expect about 20,000 or 30,000 more.”
“There is a war going on, I am losing two, three policemen a day. It’s a war, how could it be ... genocide, killing a helpless person there, kneeling,” he said. “There’s none of that, we do not gather children and young men and shoot them.”
Filipino mayor among 10 dead in clash with anti-drug police | World | News | Tor
 

Danbones

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this will cut competition, and drive up the prices i suppose
if you are in el presidente's gang, profits should be monolithic...
fast and furious cartel sized even
 

spaminator

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Philippine police say drug-linked mayor shot dead in jail
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Saturday, November 05, 2016 04:44 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, November 05, 2016 04:50 PM EDT
BAYBAY, Philippines — Philippine police killed a town mayor in his jail cell in a purported gunbattle on Saturday, the second killing in a week of a politician linked to illegal drugs under President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal crackdown.
Rolando Espinosa Sr., the mayor of the town of Albuera in the central province of Leyte, and a fellow inmate were shot dead before dawn after they fired at officers who staged a raid in search of firearms and illegal drugs in the provincial jail in Leyte’s Baybay city, police said.
Some officials and an anti-crime watchdog have called for an investigation of the circumstances of the killings, wondering how the mayor and the other inmate got hold of guns and what prompted them to clash with several policemen while in detention.
“Offhand, I can smell extrajudicial killing,” said Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief, adding that the suspicious deaths were the “biggest challenge” to the credibility of the national police force, which is undertaking the anti-drug crackdown.
Last week, police allegedly killed another town mayor, Samsudin Dimaukom, and nine of his men in a gunbattle in the southern Philippines.
Espinosa and Dimaukom were among more than 160 officials named publicly by Duterte in August as part of a shame campaign. Espinosa’s son, an alleged drug lord, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates’ capital city of Abu Dhabi last month.
After being linked by Duterte to illegal drugs, Espinosa surrendered to the national police chief in August in a nationally televised event. He was later released, but was arrested last month after being indicted on drug and illegal possession of firearm charges.
Police estimate that more than 3,600 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed since Duterte took office on June 30. Many of those killed in the initial months of the crackdown were poor drug suspects, and police said “high-value targets,” including mayors and drug lords, would be their next target in a new phase of the crackdown that was launched late last month.
The unprecedented crackdown and killings have helped ease crime, but the U.S. and other Western governments, along with human rights watchdogs, have been alarmed and called for an end to the killings. One human rights advocate has called the killings under Duterte a “human rights calamity.”
Duterte has lashed out at President Barack Obama and other critics, saying he was dealing with a pandemic that has afflicted politics, corrupted even generals and threatened to turn the country into what he describes as a “narco state” similar to some Latin American countries.
Philippine police say drug-linked mayor shot dead in jail | World | News | Toron
 

tay

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Philippine police have killed 32 people in a series of raids near the capital Manila in the bloodiest night of president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.

Duterte won a landslide victory in presidential elections last year after promising an unprecedented war on drugs in which tens of thousands of people would be killed.

The raids from Monday to Tuesday resulted in the single largest death toll in one night of police operations since officers killed 16 people, including a city mayor, in a raid on a southern city on 30 July.

Senior police superintendent Romeo Caramat said on Wednesday that 67 police operations in various parts of Bulacan province had left 32 suspects dead in encounters with police, while 109 others were arrested.

Bulacan, a province of about 3.3 million people north of Manila, has recorded numerous arrests and killings of drug suspects in recent months, police records showed.

Duterte has vowed to protect police who kill drug suspects under suspicious circumstances.

Government figures show that since Duterte took office last year up to 26 July, a total of 3,451 “drug personalities” have been killed in police operations.

More than 2,000 other people have been killed in drug-related crimes and thousands more murdered in unexplained circumstances, according to police data.

Despite warnings by human rights groups that Duterte may be overseeing a crime against humanity, he remains widely popular in the Philippines

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/16/philippines-police-bloodiest-night-duterte-war-drugs
 

spaminator

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'IT'S BULLS---': Philippines' 'Dirty' Duterte dares ICC to hang him over alleged extrajudicial killings
Reuters
Published:
December 20, 2019
Updated:
December 20, 2019 10:15 AM EST
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures during the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-LakasBayan (PDP-LABAN) meeting in Manila on May 11, 2019, ahead of the mid-term elections on May 13. NOEL CELIS / AFP/Getty Images
MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte dared the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday to jail him or hang him over alleged extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs, but said he would refuse to cooperate with foreigners if put on trial.
His remarks were the latest vows of defiance against the court in The Hague that has yet to decide whether to investigate him over thousands of deaths in his crackdown, during which activists say crimes against humanity were committed.
“You do not scare me that you will jail me in the International Criminal Court. I will never allow myself to answer these whites,” Duterte said in a speech to military cadets and reservists.
“I will never, never, never answer any question coming from you. It’s bulls— to me. I am only responsible to the Filipino. Filipinos will judge.”
“He added: “And if you hang me for all what I did, go ahead. It will be my pleasure.”
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Duterte has also blasted the United Nations after its human rights body approved a resolution in July to investigate alleged abuses in the Philippines.
The maverick former mayor has repeatedly taunted the ICC and threatened to slap or arrest its prosecutor, who in February 2018 announced a preliminary examination was being conducted into the drugs killings.
Duterte, 74, responded by unilaterally cancelling his country’s membership of the court a month later, without legislative approval, saying it had deprived him of a presumption of innocence. Amnesty International called his move “misguided” and “cowardly.”
The ICC’s prosecutor says jurisdiction applies to crimes committed while a country is a member.
In a scheduled Dec. 5 report on its activities worldwide, the ICC said it had “significantly advanced” its examination and aimed to finalize it in 2020, then decide whether to seek a formal investigation.
Human rights groups say Duterte’s anti-drugs crackdown had led to systematic executions and police cover-ups. Police reject that and say the nearly 7,000 people they have killed were armed drug suspects who resisted arrest.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/it...-hang-him-over-alleged-extrajudicial-killings