MANILA — The six individuals held for allegedly operating a clandestine shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) factory in San Juan City should consider themselves lucky.

President Duterte would have shot them dead on the spot had he joined the raid led by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on Dec. 23.

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NBI and PDEA operatives reportedly seized some 10 kilograms of shabu worth P3.6 billion during the operation.

Blurting out his usual profanities, the President on Tuesday told survivors of Typhoon “Nina” in Pili town, Camarines Sur province, of his violent approach to stemming the country’s narcotics problem.

“Like what happened in San Juan. They were lucky I was not (there). If there was that big haul of shabu, I will really kill you,” he said in between expletives.

“Let’s not resort to drama. I, myself, will shoot them if nobody would shoot them,” he said in a raised voice.

The President had repeatedly denied ordering the murders of drug suspects, only to contradict himself by publicly threatening to kill them for “destroying the youth of my country.”

He said there was no law in the country prohibiting him from making such morbid warnings to criminals and drug suspects.

Mr. Duterte, who had earned the monicker “The Punisher” for advocating vigilantism to combat criminality, boasted before a group of businessmen that he used to roam the streets of Davao City when he was its mayor to look for criminals to kill.

As in his previous controversial statements, he later backtracked and claimed he only killed three kidnappers during a legitimate police operation.

This prompted UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein to call on Philippine authorities to “demonstrate their commitment to upholding the rule of law and their independence from the executive by launching a murder investigation.”

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“The killings committed by Mr. Duterte, by his own admission, at a time when he was a mayor, clearly constitute murder,” Zeid said.

“It should be unthinkable for any functioning judicial system not to launch investigative and judicial proceedings when someone has openly admitted being a killer,” he said. SFM

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