Philippine ex-President Duterte says he kept a 'death squad' as mayor to kill criminals

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told a Senate inquiry Monday that he had maintained a “death squad” of gangsters to kill other criminals when he was mayor of a southern Philippine city.

Duterte, however, denied authorizing police to gun down thousands of suspects in a bloody crackdown on illegal drugs he had ordered as president and which is the subject of an investigation by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

Duterte, 79, attended the televised inquiry in his first public appearance since his term ended in 2022. The Senate is looking into the drug killings under Duterte, which were unprecedented in their scale in recent Philippine history.

Duterte acknowledged without elaborating that he once maintained a death squad of seven “gangsters” to deal with criminals when he was the longtime Davao city mayor, before he became president.

“I can make the confession now if you want,” Duterte said. “I had a death squad of seven, but they were not policemen, they were also gangsters.”

“I’ll ask a gangster to kill somebody,” Duterte said. “If you will not kill (that person), I will kill you now.”

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, who was overseeing the inquiry, and Sen. Risa Hontiveros, pressed Duterte to provide more details but the former president responded in unclear terms and said he would explain further in the next hearing.

Often cursing during the hearing, Duterte said he would take full responsibility for the killings that happened while he was president from 2016 to 2022. But he said he never ordered his national police chiefs, who also attended the inquiry, to undertake extrajudicial killings.

"Did I ever tell you to kill any criminal?” Duterte asked his former police chiefs. They included Ronald Dela Rosa, the current senator who first enforced Duterte's campaign against illegal drugs as his national police chief.

"No, Mr. president,” dela Rosa responded.

Aside from the International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation, there have been no known criminal complaints filed against Duterte in Philippine courts over the killings.

“I’m puzzled why the Justice Department hasn’t filed any case,” Duterte said. “I’ve been killing people for a long time and they haven’t filed any case up to now?"

Former Sen. Leila de Lima, one of the most vocal critics of Duterte who once investigated the drug killings in Davao, said there was adequate evidence and witnesses of the extrajudicial killings but they were scared of testifying against Duterte when he was in power.

De Lima was arrested early on in Duterte’s presidency on drug charges she said were fabricated to stop her from proceeding with her Senate investigation. She was cleared of the charges and released from more than six years of detention last year.

"This man, the former mayor of Davao city and the former president of the Republic of the Philippines, for so long has evaded justice and accountability,” said de Lima, sitting near the former president.

"We have not made him to account after all these years,” she said, and added that witnesses could now surface and help prosecute Duterte and his associates.

Arturo Lascanas, a retired police officer who served under Duterte for many years in a unit fighting heinous crime in Davao, told The Associated Press in an interview in 2022 that as many as 10,000 suspects may have been killed in Davao city on orders of Duterte and the former mayor’s key aides, including him.

Lascanas, who has gone into hiding abroad, said he had provided his testimony and other evidence to the International Criminal Court.

Duterte's associates may have removed the remains of the large number of victims buried in a quarry site in Davao city but Lascanas said the remains of some victims who were buried elsewhere by his group of policemen could still be retrieved and used as key evidence against the former leader and others.

Duterte sounded defiant through the hearing.

"If I’m given another chance, I’ll wipe all of you,” Duterte said of drug dealers and criminals, who he added had resumed their criminal actions after he stepped down from the presidency.

One of Asia’s most unorthodox contemporary leaders, Duterte ended his turbulent six-year term in June 2022, closing out more than three decades in the country’s often-rowdy politics, where he built a political name for his expletives-laced outbursts and disdain for human rights and the West while reaching out to China and Russia.

Activists regarded him as “a human rights calamity” not only for the widespread deaths under his so-called war on drugs but also for his brazen attacks on critical media, the dominant Catholic church and political opposition.

FILE- Former Senator Leila de Lima, one of the most vocal critics of former president Rodrigo Duterte, leaved the Muntinlupa City trial court after she was released on bail on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023 in Muntinlupa, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

FILE - Retired police officer Arturo Lascanas gestures during an interview with the Associated Press at an undisclosed location Thursday, March 9, 2017, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

FILE - Catholic priest Flaviano "Flavie" Villanueva comforts relatives as they receive the urns containing the remains of victims of alleged extrajudicial killings of President Rodrigo Duterte's so-called war on drugs at a church in Quezon city, Philippines, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

FILE - A relative of a victim in President Rodrigo Duterte's so-called war on drugs reacts during a church service in Manila, Philippines, Mach 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures during a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte attends a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, right seated, leads a senate investigation on the so-called war on drugs during the administration of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Former senator Leila de Lima, right, speaks beside former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, left, during a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte listens during a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte takes oath during a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a senate inquiry on the so-called war on drugs during his administration at the Philippine Senate Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan began a nationwide vaccination campaign Monday to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases that has hampered years of efforts to stop the disease in one of the two countries where it has never been eradicated.

Pakistan regularly launches such campaigns, but violence targeting the health workers and police assigned to escort them is common. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

The campaign is the third this year and will continue until Sunday “in response to the alarming increase in polio cases,” said Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister's adviser for the polio eradication program. “We are re-energized in our efforts to combat polio,” she said in a statement.

During the door-to-door campaign, children younger than 5 will be vaccinated and given drops of Vitamin A supplements to enhance their immunity.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently met with front-line health workers, urging them to ensure no child was left unvaccinated by going door-to-door.

Anwarul Haq, who is the coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, also urged parents to fully cooperate with polio workers. “Polio has no cure, but it can be prevented with this readily available vaccine,” he said.

Pakistan has recorded 41 cases across 71 districts so far this year, Farooq said. Most were reported from southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.

The surge in cases in new locations is worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.

Authorities in Pakistan say the Taliban’s recent decision will have repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped. It is one of the world’s most infectious diseases, so it continues to spread anywhere people are not fully vaccinated. In severe cases, polio can cause permanent paralysis and death.

In Afghanistan, a Public Health Ministry spokesman said Monday that vaccinations have started in 16 of the country’s 34 provinces. The campaign will last three days and target 6.2 million children under the age of 5, said Sharafat Zaman.

“It is worth mentioning that we do not have any positive confirmed cases of polio in 2024 and we are trying to prevent this virus through vaccination,” said Zaman.

Data from the World Health Organization says there have been 23 confirmed cases in Afghanistan this year. That’s up from six cases in 2023.

The immunization will take place in mosques and community hubs known as hujra, rather than door-to-door. That means people will have to take children to vaccinators, instead of health workers going house-to-house as is the norm.

Zaman did not respond to questions about who is carrying out the immunizations, what will happen to female polio workers, and what impact a mosque or hujra-based campaign will have on vaccination rates.

Women are not allowed to enter mosques or hujras.

Mothers or female carers may face other hurdles to access polio vaccines for children, like not being able to move freely without a male guardian or not being allowed in front of a man who is unrelated to them through blood or marriage.

The WHO has been contacted for comment about the Taliban-led vaccination drive.

A police officer stands guard as a health worker, center, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A police officer stands guard as a health worker, right, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A police officer stands guard as a health worker, right, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A health worker, center, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a school, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child in a school, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Pakistan begins another vaccination campaign after a worrying surge in polio cases

Pakistan begins another vaccination campaign after a worrying surge in polio cases

FILE -A police officer stands guard as a health worker, right, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighborhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad, File)