Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte should be impeached after he admitted to personally killing drug suspects, one of his top critics told CNN.
On Monday, Duterte said that when mayor of the southern city of Davao, he would patrol the streets “looking for an encounter so I could kill.”
Since taking power in June, Duterte has waged a brutal “war on drugs” that has been linked to more than 5,900 deaths in less than six months.
Duterte had previously been accused of killing a government official with a Uzi submachine gun but his sober admission at a business forum has enraged his critics.
‘Blood on his own hands’
The President’s comments are tantamount to an admission of “mass murder,” Senator Leila De Lima told CNN Thursday.
“These are mass murders,” she said. “High crime is a ground for impeachment under (the) constitution.”
“We Filipinos are god fearing because we’re a Catholic country and therefore we all know the killing is bad, killing is insane, killing is against the law of both man and the law of god,” De Lima said.
Amnesty International regional director Rafendi Djamin said that Duterte’s rhetoric took “the meaning of ‘state-sanctioned’ violence to a whole new level.”
“By boasting about the blood on his own hands, President Duterte will further embolden police and vigilantes to blatantly violate laws and carry out more extrajudicial executions without fear of being held to account,” Djamin said in a statement.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre defended Duterte Wednesday. “Just because you kill suspects does not mean you have violated the law,” he said.
“It could be done with a justifiable cause and justified circumstances as a public officer in order to arrest, but the suspect fought. He must have been forced to kill.”
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.