The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has told a senate inquiry into drug killings under his leadership that he kept a “death squad” of criminals to kill other criminals while serving as a mayor.
The 79-year-old, making his first public appearance on Monday since his term ended in 2022, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his presidency, during which as many as 30,000 people were killed in a “war on drugs”.
“My mandate as president of the republic was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies, because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” he said. Duterte had entered the hearing walking with a stick and was defiant throughout, often cursing as he addressed senators.
Families of victims also attended the hearing, including the uncle of Kian delos Santos, who was killed aged 17 in a case that caused international outrage.
It is estimated that between 12,000 and 30,000 people were killed between July 2016 and March 2019. Most of the victims were young men from poor, urban areas, who were shot dead in the streets or in their homes.
Duterte is facing an investigation by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes against humanity over killings that occurred in Davao, in the south of the country, while he was mayor and during his presidency. The current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, has previously said he will not cooperate with the court, but relations between the Duterte and Marcos families have soured over recent months, and it is possible the president could change his stance.
Duterte said in an opening statement that he had told police not to abuse their powers, that they should “repel the aggression only in self-defence” and that he considered drug addicts as “patients requiring medical health and not as criminals”.
Duterte denied authorising police to kill suspects, saying he had never ordered his national police chiefs to carry out extrajudicial killings. However, he said he maintained a death squad of seven “gangsters” while mayor of Davao City before he became president.
“I can make the confession now if you want,” Duterte said. “I had a death squad of seven, but they were not policemen, they were also gangsters.”
“I’ll ask a gangster to kill somebody,” Duterte said. “If you will not kill [that person], I will kill you now.”
When asked by senators for further details of the death squad, he said he would give more information at the next hearing.
Duterte also said that he ordered officers to encourage criminals to fight back and resist arrest, so that police could then justify killing them.
“What I said is this, let’s be frank, I said encourage the criminal to fight, encourage them to draw their guns. That was my instruction, encourage them to fight, and if they fight, then kill them so my problem in my city is done,” he said, in comments reported by Rappler, an independent news outlets.
Earlier this month, a separate parliamentary inquiry heard evidence from a former police colonel who said officers could earn between 20,000 pesos (£265) and 1m pesos (£13,200) per killing during the drugs crackdowns, depending upon the target. Rewards were given only for killings, not arrests, she said. On Monday, Duterte denied her claims.
During the hearing, Father Flavie Villanueva, an activist and fierce critic of the “war on drugs”, unfurled a scroll that listed the names of 312 victims whose families he supported, and cited a previous public statement by Duterte in which the former president said: “If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am the mayor, you are legitimate target of assassination.”
Prior to and during his presidency, Duterte repeatedly and openly threatened drug dealers with death. He urged people to kill drug addicts and dealers. In 2016, he claimed he had personally killed suspects while mayor.
Carlos H Conde, senior researcher at the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said it was doubtful the senate hearing would lead to accountability, pointing out that the inquiry was initiated by Duterte’s allies in the senate, who are themselves implicated.
“This was clearly designed as a platform by Duterte’s people to refute what had come out of the hearings in the lower house,” he said, referring to claims in another inquiry that Duterte’s office had given financial rewards for killings.
The senate hearing is being held in aid of legislation, where senators invite people to give evidence to help in the creation of new laws or amendments to current laws and is not a criminal investigation.
