Duterte: We still have 3 years to kill drug personalities

April 24, 2019

President Rodrigo Duterte said he has three more years to kill those involved in illegal drugs.

In a speech Tuesday night at the opening ceremony of the 7th Union Asia Pacific Regional Conference in Pasay City, Duterte vowed to continue with his work on the last three years of his six-year term.

"I will clean this (country) up. I hope to do it. We still have three years to kill all of them (those involved in illegal drugs). Then I go to prison, so be it. I get hanged, my pleasure," he said.

Based on government data, over 5,000 drug suspects have been killed since Duterte assumed office in 2016 and declared an all-out war against illegal drugs.

Duterte said before he leaves for China on Wednesday afternoon, he would issue letters of dismissal against some government officials due to corruption.

"But if you ask me if I'm happy with the job, I am not because of so many corruption and I have to fire. I'm leaving for China, and before that I will leave so many letters of dismissal. Corruption is really --- seeps down on the core. You have to have something more than just a warning," he said, adding there were instances that he had beaten some people.

Duterte acknowledged that he was not a statesman, the usual complaint against him.

"And that has been the main complaint against me because they said, 'he's not a statesman. He talks in vulgar terms. And he ---epithets, curses, and all'," he said.

But Duterte, a lawyer by profession, said cursing others is not a crime.

"But when the press, the Philippines and otherwise, would quote me shitting somebody with p***** i** --- you know, it’s not even a crime. The Supreme Court said when you say those words: epithets, curses and slang words in the heat of anger, you tend to use the mother you know --- 'F' and everything," he said.

"And besides I was not schooled in statesmanship. There is no course of that kind in the Philippines. Otherwise, I would have enrolled it and improve on my demeanor," he added. Celerina Monte/DMS