MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday admitted widespread corruption in the police force that is waging his deadly war on drugs, but extended the crackdown until the last day of his term in 2022.
Duterte announced plans to “cleanse” the police force, including suspending anti-drug units, after a series of scandals in which officers were caught committing murder, extortion and robbery while using the drug war as cover.
“You policemen are the most corrupt. You are corrupt to the core. It’s in your system,” Duterte told reporters as he railed against the anti-drug officers who allegedly masterminded the murder of a South Korean businessman.
Duterte said nearly 40 percent of the police force engaged in illegal activities. His comments came seven months after he took office and immediately made police the frontline troops in his plans to wipe out the illegal drug trade that he said was threatening to turn the Philippines into a narco state.
Since then, police have reported shooting dead more than 2,500 people they have accused of being drug suspects, alleging on every occasion they had to open fire in self-defence.
Human rights groups and relatives of some of the victims have alleged police frequently kill defenceless people, and often plant drugs and a gun on the bullet-riddled corpse. Nearly 4,000 other people have died in unexplained circumstances in the crackdown, according to official figures.
Many of those victims have had signs placed on them labelling them drug traffickers or users.
