MANILA, Philippines—Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte berated more than 200 policemen accused of a variety of offenses, threatening on national television on Feb. 8 that he would send them to a southern island to fight terrorists dreaded for beheading their captives.
Duterte’s expletive-filled outburst against the officers at Manila’s presidential palace was his latest tirade against a police force that he has called “rotten to the core.” He recently banned the national police from carrying out his anti-drug campaign after a group of officers used the operations as a cover to kidnap and kill a South Korean man in an extortion scandal.
The 228 policemen from metropolitan Manila are accused of a range of administrative and criminal offenses, including extortion and illegal arrests. Some have tested positive for drug use, regional police spokeswoman Inspector Kimberly Molitas said.
Duterte, who was a longtime crime-busting city mayor and government prosecutor before he took office last June, said he had wanted to punish the policemen by ordering them to clear the murky Pasig River by the presidential palace of water lilies, but that the river was clear of lilies.
