He said last year that he preferred public hangings. This would cause widespread outrage in the majority Catholic nation where the death penalty was abolished in 2006 under then president Gloria Arroyo. Davao Mayor and President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to kill criminals. Credit:AP Only a handful of countries carry out public executions, including Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Most countries have outlawed the practice where members of the general public can choose to attend. Indonesia announced last week it was preparing a further round of 13 executions on Nusakambangan, the island known as Indonesia's Alcatraz, after the execution by firing squad last year of 14 prisoners, including Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

Singapore is set to execute 31-year-old Malaysian convicted murderer Jabing Kho on May 20. A life-size cutout of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte is placed by the stairs for customers to take a selfie at a restaurant in his hometown in Davao. Credit:AP A campaign is underway to press the city-state's president Tony Tan to grant Jabing clemency after changes to laws and appeals saw him sentenced to death, then life imprisonment, then death again. Mr Duterte, the 71-year-old mayor of southern Davao, swept the polls on promises to wipe out corruption, including by killing criminals if they resist arrest. In typical campaign bravado he said 100,000 people would die and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that the fish would grow fat.

Some analysts predicted that Mr Duterte would tone his comments after winning office but he vowed during his latest interviews to carry out his threat to kill. "What I will do is to urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging in public," he said. Mr Dutere signalled the main targets of his crackdown would be drug pushers, including teenagers, saying the drug problem had become a major threat to national security. Mr Duterte said he would propose special courts to try drugs cases and to repeal juvenile justice laws that protect the rights of minors. He said the laws had "ushered in a new generation of criminals".

If children were picked up on the streets late at night their parents would be thrown in jail for the crime of "abandonment", he said. Mr Duterte repeated that he would give security forces "shoot-to-kill" orders against organised criminals and those who resisted arrest. "If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police will be to shoot to kill. Shoot to kill for organised crime. You heard that? Shoot to kill for every organised crime." Mr Dutere has been linked to vigilante death squads in Davao, a city of more than 1 million people that he says he has turned into one of the country's safest cities. He is due to take office on June 30, replacing president Benigno Aquino, one of his harshest critics, who was barred from standing again under the country's constitution.