Philippine president-elect offers bounties for drug lords

Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday he will pay bounties to police or military officials who capture suspected drug lords “dead or alive,” adding that there is enough reward money to leave “100 persons dead.”
He also endorsed the assassination of corrupt journalists and repeated his election campaign vows to kill criminals, particularly drug traffickers, rapists and murderers.
Duterte said he will pay up to 3 million pesos ($64,000) for every drug lord that officials turn in, adding that the bounties would be financed by left-over campaign contributions.
The targets, he said, will include anti-narcotic agents who are secretly involved in the drug trade and jailed crime suspects who manage to continue their drug dealing. He said only crime suspects who put up a resistance would be killed.
“I’m not saying that you kill them but the order is dead or alive,” Duterte said in a televised news conference in Davao, the southern city where he has been mayor for many years.
Duterte, 71, whose six-year term starts June 30, won an overwhelming election victory on a promise to eradicate crime and corruption in the country within six months, a feat police officials say will be difficult to achieve. He told the news conference that the anti-drug crackdown is starting “now.”
A former prosecutor, Duterte said he stressed his seriousness in his anti-drug campaign to an official who will be appointed to a law enforcement agency.
“I said, ‘I’ll put you there on one condition, that if you have an agent who is messing around with drugs and it comes to a fight, I want you to kill him personally,’” Duterte said, adding he promised the official he would get the largest bounty if he does that.
He said military forces will be harnessed in the war against drugs. Army and police units will check on each other to punish personnel involved in drugs, and special forces could be deployed in jails to make sure inmates who continue to deal in drugs will “no longer be standing,” he said.
Duterte, who has stayed in Davao city since the May 9 election, introduced a number of his Cabinet appointees at the news conference, including officials who have served under previous presidents, former college classmates, close political allies, and a handful of left-wing activists.
Duterte’s bold approach to crime and public threats to kill criminals have resonated among Filipinos long exasperated with crime, but have sparked alarm among human rights groups and pro-democracy advocates, who fear Duterte may resort to strongman tactics.
Addressing criminals, Duterte warned: “Do not destroy my country because I will kill you, do not destroy the youth of the land, our children, because I will kill you.”

Corrupt journalists
Duterte said journalists who took bribes or engaged in other corrupt activities also deserved to die.
“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Duterte said when asked how he would address the problem of media killings in the Philippines after a reporter was shot dead in Manila last week.
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous nations in the world for journalists, with 174 murdered since a chaotic and corruption-plagued democracy replaced the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos three decades ago.
“Most of those killed, to be frank, have done something. You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,” Duterte said, adding that many journalists in the Philippines were corrupt.
Duterte also said freedom of expression provisions in the constitution did not necessarily protect a person from violent repercussions for defamation.
“That can’t be just freedom of speech. The constitution can no longer help you if you disrespect a person,” he said.
Duterte raised the case of Jun Pala, a journalist and politician who was murdered in Davao in 2003. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead Pala, who was a vocal critic of Duterte. His murder has never been solved.
“If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you,” said Duterte, who has ruled Davao as mayor for most of the past two decades and is accused of links to vigilante death squads.
“The example here is Pala. I do not want to diminish his memory but he was a rotten son of a bitch. He deserved it.”
One of the world’s deadliest attacks against journalists took place in the Philippines in 2009, when 32 journalists were among 58 people killed by a warlord clan intent on stopping a rival’s election challenge.
More than 100 people are on trial for the massacre, including many members of the Ampatuan family accused of orchestrating it.
Duterte has named Salvador Panelo, the former defense lawyer for the Ampatuans, as his presidential spokesman, a nomination criticized by the victims’ families and journalists’ organizations.

Source : Arab News