Photo: AP

One of the frontrunners for the Philippine presidency has been caught on tape airing several fairly damning thoughts on a brutal rape and murder that occurred in the country in 1989.



In a video uploaded to YouTube that’s since been removed, Rodrigo Duterte, 71, can be heard joking to an amused crowd about the killing of 36-year-old missionary Jacqueline Hamill. She and four other hostages were killed in a Davao prison during an inmate riot almost 30 years ago.

“They raped all of the women ... There was this Australian lay minister ... when they took them out ... I saw her face and I thought, ‘Son of a bitch. What a pity ... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first.”

Duterte has spent nearly three decades as the mayor of the troubled city of Davao. He drew notoriety and earned the nickname “The Punisher” for his vigilante crime-fighting methods, which some speculate have been instrumental in Davao’s resurrection as a tourist destination. Specifically, Duterte has been connected to the Davao Death Squad, a group responsible for hundreds of execution-style murders “of drug traffickers, petty criminals, gang members and other lawless elements.”