President Rodrigo Duterte to issue executive order for military support for his war on drugs

The former city mayor says the police and the justice ministry-run National Bureau of Investigation cannot be relied upon and has promised ’a cleansing, a purge’.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he will issue an executive order for military support in his fight against illicit drugs, which he said was a national security threat and he would “kill more” people if he had to.

The mercurial leader ruled out declaring martial law and said he did not need extra powers, but wanted to bring the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) into his drugs war because he could no longer trust law enforcement agencies.

All police operations in the drug crackdown were suspended on Monday due to deep-rooted corruption. Mr Duterte has placed an anti-drugs agency in charge of the campaign and has said he wants the armed forces to play a supportive role.

“I still have to write the, whether it is a proclamation or an executive order, but I’ve taken in the AFP and raised the issue of drugs as a national security threat, so that I can call on the armed forces to assist,” he said in a speech in Davao.

“I have limited warm bodies but so many wars to fight,” he said.

The former city mayor said the police and the justice ministry-run National Bureau of Investigation could not be relied upon and promised “a cleansing, a purge”.

Mr Duterte did not say what the remit of the military would be in the drugs campaign, or give any indication of the number of troops that would be involved, but said they were necessary.

Some 7,600 people have been killed since Mr Duterte launched his war on drugs seven months ago, more than 2,500 in what police say were shootouts during raids and sting operations.

The cause of the remainder of deaths remains disputed, with police blaming turf wars and vigilantism, and activists alleging widespread summary executions - something the government has denied.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said involving the military was the wrong move because the armed forces had a track record of extrajudicial killings, particularly where Communist rebels were concerned.

“Using military personnel for civilian policing anywhere heightens the risk of unnecessary or excessive force and inappropriate military tactics,” the rights group said.

“But there is also a deeply rooted culture of impunity for military abuses in the Philippines.”

Mr Duterte said he cared little for drug dealers and addicts and had underestimated the scale of the problem when he made his initial target of six months to win his war.

“You bleed for those son of a bitch. How many? 3,000? I will kill more if only to get rid of drugs and this campaign,” he said. “I thought that would finish it in six months.”

Karen Lema, Martin Petty, Manila, Thursday 2 February 20179

* The Independent Online. Reuters:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-war-on-drugs-military-support-executive-order-afp-illegal-kill-a7558596.html

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 Duterte: ’I will kill more if only to get rid of drugs’

Philippine leader says he will ask military to help in anti-drug war as rights group reveals police abuses.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has declared that the country’s drug problem has become a national security threat, and that he intends to issue an official order directing the military to help in his campaign.

Duterte said on Thursday that he does not intend to declare martial law, but added that his controversial war against illegal drugs will continue.

“I’m taking in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and raising the issue of drugs as a national security threat so that I will call on all the armed forces to assist,” he said in a speech broadcast online from his hometown of Davao City.

Referring to suspected drug criminals, he said in a mix of Filipino and English: “You bleed for those sons of a b****es. How many? Three thousand? I will kill more if only to get rid of drugs.”

Duterte made the statement after the Philippine defence ministry urged him on Wednesday to call on the military for help in going after drug criminals and corrupt police officers.

The Philippine police, the country’s main law enforcer, earlier said that it would suspend its anti-drug campaign and “cleanse” its ranks, after it was revealed that some of its officers were carrying out kidnap-for-ransom operations using the drug war as a cover.

Jee Ick-joo, a South Korean businessman living in the Philippines, was among those who fell victim to the police syndicate. His murder inside Philippine police headquarters in Manila triggered a congressional investigation causing international embarrassment for Duterte.

On Monday, Duterte lashed out at the police, telling them: “You are corrupt to the core. It is in your system.”

As of January 31, there have been 7,080 people killed during the first seven months of the Duterte presidency, according to the police. Of that number, 2,555 were killed in police operations, while 3,603 others were killed by unknown suspects.

’Economy of murder’

On Wednesday, Amnesty International Philippines reported that police officers were being paid by the government for killing drug suspects [1].

"This is not a war on drugs, but a war on the poor. Often on the flimsiest of evidence, people accused of using or selling drugs are being killed for cash in an economy of murder,” said Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Director.

The Amnesty International investigation documented at least 33 cases involving the killings of 59 people.

A previous Al Jazeera investigation also revealed that police officers were involved in attempted killings of unarmed drug suspects who had already surrendered to authorities [2].

But in his speech on Thursday, Duterte was adamant, saying that even US President Donald Trump supports his policy, repeating the details of his conversation with the American leader in December.

He has previously said that his war on drugs would continue until the end of his term in 2022.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned against the militarisation of Duterte’s drug war.

“Using military personnel for civilian policing anywhere heightens the risk of unnecessary or excessive force and inappropriate military tactics,” Phelim Kine, HRW deputy director, said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

Kine said there is also a “deeply rooted culture of impunity for military abuses” in the Philippines, and that the military’s “long history of masking extrajudicial killings” of suspected communist rebels “has sinister parallels” with police anti-drug operations.

Al Jazeera News

* http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/duterte-kill-rid-drugs-170202073247477.html

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 Philippines army may now join Duterte’s ’war on drugs’

The defence ministry has asked the president to formally request the military to participate in the wide crackdown.

The Philippine defence ministry has asked President Rodrigo Duterte to issue an order for the military to play a role in his “war on drugs”, including granting troops powers to arrest “scalawag” police.

The ministry on Wednesday asked Duterte to formalise remarks he made in a speech to army generals the day before, when he said he wanted their help in the wide crackdown on drug-users and drug dealers alike, as well as to detain members of a police force Duterte said was “corrupt to the core”.

The ministry asked for “an official order regarding this presidential directive to serve as a legal basis for our troops to follow”.

“By the same token, the president’s verbal directive to arrest ’scalawag cops’ should also be covered by a formal order,” the ministry said in a statement.

Duterte’s police chief instructed the Philippine National Police (PNP) on Monday to suspend their anti-drugs operations after the killing of a South Korean businessman by rogue drug-squad police. Duterte was infuriated and embarrassed by the incident, which he said had “international implications”.

Duterte’s suggestion that the military should step in to fill the void left by police marks a stunning change of tack by the former city mayor, who had steadfastly supported the police amid allegations from human rights groups and some politicians of widespread abuses of power.

The Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency, a body a fraction of the size of the PNP, took over the lead in the crackdown, but Duterte suggested he may need the military’s help.

Rights group Amnesty International said in a report on Wednesday that police prosecuting the “war on drugs” had behaved like the criminal underworld they are supposed to be suppressing, taking payments for killings and delivering bodies to funeral homes.

It said the wave of thousands of drugs-related killings in a matter of months - as part of Duterte’s campaign - appeared to be “systematic, planned and organised” by authorities, and could constitute crimes against humanity.

The president’s office has yet to comment on the report.

More than 7,600 people have been killed since Duterte launched his war, with at least 2,500 killings by police forces and many of the remaining deaths attributed to vigilantes and turf wars.

It is not immediately clear what role the military might play in the campaign.

The volatile president has threatened several times to declare martial law to help the crackdown, but has thus far ruled it out. He has made no suggestion in the past week of invoking military rule.

Duterte’s spokesman on Tuesday said the president was fully aware of police corruption when he gave police the lead in the crackdown, but the scale of the narcotics problem was “so big” that “he had no other choice”.

The Drugs Enforcement Agency said leading the crackdown without the police would be a challenge, but it could handle it.

“We can enlist the help of other agencies and other stakeholders and in fact our director general has been in several meetings with the AFP already,” said the agency’s spokesman, Derrick Carreon, referring to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“We will be deploying teams in key areas where it would be easier for them to respond. It will be more challenging ... that is why we are engaging other stakeholders.”

Senator Leila De Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte, denounced the idea of involving the military.

“The solution is to stop the killings, and not call out the AFP to do the killings that the PNP has supposedly ceased to perform,” she said in a statement.

Reuters news agency

* 1 FEBRUARY 2017:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/philippines-military-join-duterte-war-drugs-170201075056836.html

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 Philippine police suspend drug war to tackle corruption

Head of national police force says anti-drugs units will be disbanded until ’rogue’ officers have been ’cleansed’.

Police in the Philippines are suspending their war on drugs until they have “cleansed” their ranks of “rogue” officers, the head of the national police force has said.

Ronald dela Rosa, the director-general of the National Police, told reporters on Monday that he was disbanding anti-drugs units following a botched kidnap-for-ransom operation of a South Korean businessman.

Jee Ick-joo’s body was found inside the grounds of the national police headquarters in October. His head was wrapped in packaging tape and he had been strangled.

“To all the rogue cops, beware! We no longer have a war on drugs,” Dela Rosa said.

“We will cleanse our ranks ... then maybe after that, we can resume our war on drugs. The president told us to clean the organisation first.”I don’t know how long it will take to cleanse the PNP. But with each and every one of us cooperating, helping each other, maybe in a month, we can do it," he added.

The campaign, which also includes officers going from house to house in search of drug suspects, has claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people, according to a police report cited by the Manila-based news website Rappler.

Al Jazeera’s Jamela Alindogan, reporting from the capital Manila, said the government and police force were sending conflicting messages.

On Sunday, President Rodrigo Duterte, who swept to power in May elections on a pledge to eradicate drugs, vowed to forge ahead with his war on drugs until the last day of his term.

“This is a complete turnaround from his election promise that he will be able to eliminate the presence of narcotics in his first six months of office,” our correspondent said.

Senator Leila De Lima, Duterte’s most outspoken critic, said the president and his police chief “should categorically give the order to end the killings”.

The dismantling of the anti-drug units meant “they are aware that the very men involved in anti-drug operations ... are involved in illegal activities under the guise of the so-called war on drugs,” she told ANC television.

Duterte’s anti-drug campaign has caused alarm in the West, and rights groups accuse Duterte of turning a blind eye to a wave of alleged extrajudicial killings by police, mostly of low-level peddlers. Police deny this, claiming self-defence.

Al Jazeera and news agencies

* http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/philippines-drug-war-170130091943373.html

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