DAVAO CITY—President-elect Rodrigo Roa Duterte offered a bounty of P3 million for every drug lord that will be killed by authorities and said he will even spend monies donated for his campaign to fund the operation.
“The order is dead or alive. The police know when it is legal to kill and when it is not,” Duterte told journalists in a press conference at the Malacañang of the South in Panacan after he announced the designation of lawyer Dante Gierran as director of the National Bureau of Investigation.
“I told NBI Director Dante Gierran I want you to personally do the killing. I will give him the P3 million [per drug lord] and P1 million for [lower ranking drug dealers],” he said, adding that he expected about 100 drug lords killed.
“Do not destroy my country because I will destroy you. Do not destroy the youth of the land because I will kill you,” said Duterte who is set to assume office on June 30.
When asked where he will get the P300 million for the bounty, he said: “I already have it. The excess of campaign contributions.”
At the same time, he said he will also ask Congress to remove the lesser criminal penalty of probation for those convicted of drug offenses.
He also warned that he will not spare law enforcers who use drugs and announced that he will task the military to take care of lawmen found violating drug laws. “I will call a private and ask him to shoot the offender,” he said.
It was the second time Duterte publicly discussed his looming anti-drugs campaign after he summoned a midnight press conference on May 27 to scold authorities over the drug-related deaths of five young people in a Pasay City concert party.
Saying the deaths were caused by a failure of police intelligence, Duterte announced he would implement a massive reshuffle in the Philippine National Police and threatened to assign Metro Manila law enforcers to far-flung stations to instill duty and discipline among them.
Duterte, who ran on a platform of curbing criminality and the use of drugs, slammed the authorities for their negligence and question the funds allotted to them. He said the police failure to notice the drug dealers during the event was unacceptable.
“The problem is that law enforcement failed,” he said, adding that he will scrutinize where the funds for intelligence and operations go when he assumed office.