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THE PHILIPPINES’ POLICE police chief has called on drug users to kill traffickers and burn their homes, escalating President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial crime war that has claimed 2,000 lives.
“Why don’t you give them a visit, pour gasoline on their homes and set these on fire to register your anger?,” Ronald dela Rosa said in a speech aired on television today.
“They’re all enjoying your money, money that destroyed your brain. You know who the drug lords are. Would you like to kill them? Go ahead. Killing them is allowed because you are the victim.”
Dela Rosa was speaking to several hundred drug users who had surrendered in the central Philippines.
Dela Rosa’s comments followed Duterte’s own controversial directives that have sparked criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups.
Duterte, 71, won elections in May in a landslide on a vow to kill tens of thousands of suspected criminals in an unprecedented blitz that would eliminate illegal drugs in six months.
He promised on the campaign trail that 100,000 people would be killed and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that fish would grow fat from feeding on them.
Days after his election win, Duterte also offered security officials bounties for the bodies of drug dealers.
And when he took office on 30 June, Duterte told a crowd in Manila:
If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.
The UN special rapporteur on summary executions, Agnes Callamard, said such directives “amount to incitement to violence and killing, a crime under international law”.
However Dela Rosa and Duterte have insisted they are working within the law and their aides have dismissed some of their comments as merely “hyperbole” meant to scare drug traffickers.
‘Sad, mad and sorry’
After a barrage of bad headlines, Dela Rosa apologised for his remarks and described them as due to an “emotional outburst”.
“Yesterday, I said that because I felt so bad. I was in front of those poor people, pushers and users, they looked like zombies. I was so mad, that’s why I said that,” he told reporters.
I’m sorry if I said something unpleasant. Many people are reacting. I am very sorry. I am just a human being who gets mad.
When asked earlier today if Duterte supported Dela Rosa’s call to murder and commit arson, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella denied that was the police chief’s intent.
“There is no such call. It’s a passionate statement,” Abella said, without elaborating.
Dela Rosa recently told a Senate inquiry that the confirmed number of people to have died in the drug war was 1,946.
He said police had shot dead 756 suspects in self-defence.
He said there were another 1,190 killings under investigation, but they were likely due to drug gangs murdering people who could implicate each other. He also emphasised the crime war had so far been a success.
“I admit many are dying but our campaign, now, we have the momentum,” he told the Senate.
Many Filipinos continue to support Duterte, accepting his argument that drastic measures are needed to stop the Philippines becoming a “narco state”.
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fair play Bob. massive respect.
“Were people dying in the United States, in France, and in Germany and in England”.
Yet when people were dying in Northern Ireland, “Sir” Bob was happy to pal around and accept titles from Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative nutters.
you begrudging good-for-nothing. You’re not fit to walk in his shadow. What have you ever done for mankind except begrudge those who try to do something worthwhile?
Sir Bob is a dude! he’s been witness to a lot of tragedy including personal tragedy and he just keeps plugging away. With his money he could easily fade into the background and live a handy life but he chooses to campaign and raise money. Some man for one man!
Eh… just Bob… not a real sir….
Brian,
People call him ‘Sir Bob’ as a nickname because he got some kind of knighthood – KBE, I think – from the queen.
If you were pedantic though, you could technically say ‘he’s not actually Sir Bob’.
And if you knew what you were talking about you’d know he received an honoury knighthood… just like Tony o Reilly. … you also know that they are given to non UK or commonwealth people and that the title Sir does not go along with it…. I doubt very much Geldof refers to himself as sir just the wannabe idiots spouting on about it
Yes, a KBE …and we call him Sir Bob because it’s his nickname.
Don’t worry about it anyway, Brian – that’s the main thing.
Well put Elaine
Ah, come off it, Journal. My comment was fair comment. Why delete it?
All I said was, if he focused on his own immediate family instead of trying to save the world, would both he, and they by extension, be better off?
He said as much himself ffs.
If your focus was eleswhere we would all be better off Niall
Why would he need to be “focusing” on a grown adult daughter who has a husband to look after he and plenty of money?
@niall I imagine he’s the kind of guy who looks at the bigger picture not his immediate personal issues. And to be fair what can he do when his grown up married children do drugs in secret? The world as a whole is better off with Sir Bob doing what he does!
Well, Neal, his now tragically deceased daughter is on the record as saying – to paraphrase – he never bothered much with the grand kids.
….its another case of bob the builder so…….Leave it to bob we don’t have to think for ourselves or consider inacting anything he proposes…he is saying that ending these constructed paradigms that a billion people face today is possible and within reach….Elaine…..is there something that you could manifest to carry his words or is the blade on his sholder just a division of power?
So what? You don’t have to bother with your grand kids, they’re your kid’s responsibility.
That’s true. So by your logic …..he certainly doesn’t have to bother with aids.
No I don’t suppose there is but at least you can sit back behind one of your latest anonymous profiles and feel really super intelligent after that comment. So I guess in a roundabout way I helped one person today…. No need to thank me ;)
I don’t know why he is attacking Australians as the video says.
They topped the World Giving Index a few years ago, while he dodges his tax in Britain.
I would have though with his life experiences and all his millions and all the good advice he dishes out he’d have made his family and home bomb proof before saving the world. If anyone could have saved that child from her self he could.
Bob should marry Sinead O Connor —- they both are so alike it’s uncanny, between the 2 of them they could save a lot of people. If they need any more help good old Bono could save the day. We are lucky in Ireland to have the 3 of them — they seem to know everything and know how everything should be done. Did they go to the same school or are they just typical Irish People ? They could be called the Holy Trinity or I can’t think of an appropriate neme just now.
Peaches was lucky she had sterile needles twitch or no twitch. Would the 100 experts or so who perished on the Malaysian flight consider their work as you can do this shit!!!!
have your say