Pubdate: Mon, 08 Aug 2016 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2016 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: Felipe Villamor PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT LINKS 150 OFFICIALS TO DRUG CRIMES MANILA - The Philippines' new president, Rodrigo Duterte, on Sunday publicly accused scores of judges, mayors, lawmakers, military personnel and police officers of involvement with the illegal drug trade, giving them 24 hours to surrender for investigation or, he said, be "hunted" down. Mr. Duterte rejected calls last week from international human rights groups to observe due process in the war he has declared on both sellers and users of illicit drugs, after a photograph of a drug user shot and killed by vigilantes made it to the front pages and became a symbol for the bloody antidrug campaign. "I ordered the listing. I ordered the validation," he said Sunday in a nationally televised speech at a naval base, referring to the roughly 150 people he mentioned by name. "I'm the one reading it, and I am the sole person responsible for these all." He said the accused "are hereby ordered relieved" of their duties, and he indicated that he was only fulfilling a campaign promise to be harsh. Some of those on his list are local politicians whom he said he knew personally. He also said the officials and others on his list should no longer be allowed to have permits for guns and other weapons. "I'm ordering the national police chief to lift police supervision and cancel any and all private arms that are licensed to these mayors I mentioned," he said. "They are all canceled. Go out naked to the world and show how crooked you are." "All of you judges or whatever, you report to the Supreme Court," Mr. Duterte added. "Policemen, you report to the police chief. And army, to the chief of staff." "You do not do that, I will order the armed forces of the Philippines and the entire P.N.P. to hunt for you," he said, using the initials of the Philippine National Police. He did not say what evidence he had used as a basis for his accusations, acknowledging that "it might be true, it might not be true." But in response to groups that had cautioned him not to trample on individuals' rights, he said that if those he named were charged in court, they would receive due process. "Due process has nothing to do with my mouth," Mr. Duterte said. "There are no proceedings here, no lawyers." He said he wanted the Philippine people, especially those who voted for him in May, to know what was happening in the country. And he insisted that he did not care what the people would say, daring politicians critical of him to remove him from office. "It's very important for the people to know the state of things or conditions in this country," he said. "That is my sworn duty." The president contended, as he had before, that drug abuse and the drug trade were "pandemic" in the Philippines. He said the nation's Drug Enforcement Agency had estimated that 3 percent of the population, or three million of the 100 million Filipinos, were addicted to drugs and that 92 percent of villages in metropolitan Manila had been "contaminated with drug use." He also claimed that as many as 600,000 people were both using and selling drugs. Mr. Duterte promised police officers that he would have their back if they faced human rights charges in connection with carrying out his antidrug campaign. He recalled that when he was mayor of the southern city of Davao, his standing order to the police was to be quick on the draw and shoot suspects on sight. "I told police then that I will kick them if they are writhing in pain if I see them get shot," he said. "Why were you beaten to the draw? That ain't the way. Illegal? No, of course not." In the month since Mr. Duterte took office, more than 400 people suspected of dealing drugs have been killed, either by the police or by vigilantes. About 600,000 people have surrendered to the police. In a statement issued after Mr. Duterte's speech, Franklin M. Drilon, the president pro tempore of the Senate, said, "I strongly support President Duterte's antidrug campaign, but due process and the rule of law must be dutifully upheld." "I urged the president that if there is evidence that these officials were involved in the drug trade, he should immediately charge them administratively or in court," Mr. Drilon said. "There should be no shortcuts." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom