Presidential Communications Office
Presidential News Desk
SPEECH OF
PRESIDENT RODRIGO ROA DUTERTE
DURING THE 115th PHILIPPINE COAST
GUARD ANNIVERSARY
[Delivered at the Philippine Coast Guard Headquarters, Port Area, Manila | 12 October 2016]
Thank you. Kindly sit down.
Ambassador Ishikawa, the Ambassador of Japan to the Philippines; Representative Cesar V. Sarmiento, chairman of the House committee on Transport; Rear Admiral William Melad; commandant Philippine Coast Guard; distinguished guests; fellow workers in government; my fellow countrymen.
Let me start by giving our sense of gratitude to the Japanese Ambassador Ishikawa, for our heartfelt thanks for giving us the ships. Some are here, others are coming, and your desire to help the Philippines.
Sir, Ambassador, we have a long history of friendship and cooperation. As a matter of fact, Japan is one of the biggest contributors to the assistance of the Filipino people.
And in my city alone, JICA projects are abundant and it has redound to the benefit of my countrymen over in Mindanao.
And now I’m the President and we continue to pour the aid that you feel you want to extend to us and again, we’d like to thank the Japanese people, your Emperor and your government.
We need the ships. If you count the number of islands of about 7,000 plus that would count to so many great mile of coastlines. It is not enough but at least we have the ships to begin with. The old ones plus the new one that has been delivered to us would greatly help us in this endeavor.
Our main focus now is terrorism, human trafficking, and drugs. But on my notes here, I would like to stress to you now that our main focus is the drug problem.
Why? Because it will destroy our country. Why? If we do not interdict the present problem now, considering the magnitude and widespread contamination of the people of the Philippines, it will result someday maybe in a failed state.
Alam ho ninyo, during the time of General Santiago, that was about two, three years ago. He gave us the figure of three million addicted Philippines. ‘Yun sa panahon niya. ‘Yung akin, we did not know the dimension of that problem.
I know that Davao was also hit. I know that Davao was the favorite focus of the human rights and I do not blame them for the alleged extrajudicial killing because of the number of people killed.
You know, once upon a time, I was a prosecutor. And I’ve had a lot of heartaches, cases dismissed, for so many and varied reason.
One is that, the evidence that reaches the court is not really the one that was confiscated on the ground. There were a lot of substitutions, a lot of corruption going on. I could only suffer in silence.
I swallowed all of those misgivings and I said someday I might be able to do something more. So I was the favorite whipping boy when I became mayor because I was really very strict.
What’s the reason why mas marami ang patay sa Davao kaysa ibang lugar? Well for one, having gone the travails of law enforcement, I was quite aware of the attendant problems and travails of a law enforcer.
Ang pulis lang one, if there is a case filed against him, he has to go to the POLCOM to answer. He has to go to the Internal Affairs to answer, one crime. He has to worry about the Ombudsman and he was to worry about the Human Rights.
Hindi malaman ng pulis, mabubuwang. Hindi lang ninyo alam. The guy there outside. That once a case is filed against him, except for the officers, automatically they are suspended. Pati ‘yung mga opisyal but on a long term, two years, ‘pag wala nangyari ‘yung kaso, they are restored. But itong policeman hindi. Then on that day, with an entry fee in the police, anywhere with only 14,000. How do you think the human being will survive?
Suspended kaagad ‘yan on that day. Wala na ‘yung pagkain sa opisina and even the small, few things of financing the trip of the children to and fro from the school.
Kaya doon sa akin, if you really want to know, if a policeman or a military man for that matter, or a government security for as long as he follow ‘yung trabaho niya, he will have my support and they have my support. And I supply the money take home if they are suspended.
I see to it that they have one sack of rice to eat every month. I give them almost a grocery of — para may ulam. So to complete the meal. And I take care of the lawyers and everything.
So what do I get in return? I get the security forces working for me efficiently. And because they are industrious, they have more to encounter and eventually the more cases filed against them.
But in my 22 years as mayor, I have never allowed a military man, a policeman, the security forces to go to jail because they were doing their duty. I never allowed that.
I fought all the way, tooth and nail. There was a time, 27 police officers were recommended for dismissal. I raised hell. And I said I would never allow, even if I have to. Or might as well ask them join me, go to the mountains and fight government. If that is how things turn out to be, with all our good intentions.
Now, with the Coast Guard having the ships. Well number one is maritime safety, then rescue, then protection of the environment and the — our intervention or interdiction sa drugs.
Let me just explain to you my longing desire. I am a Filipino. I do not claim greatness. I do not have the credentials even. I graduated on a 75-76-75 level of grades, barely enough to climb.
All of the Cabinet members that you see now are my friends, my fraternity brothers, and people from Davao whom I know.
I could not have selected my Cabinet from here and that was the criticism: magkaibigan, friends, magka-inuman, drinking partners.
But for the life of me, I have a serious problem and I cannot drink anymore. I do not go out. After work, I go back to my bedroom and start on state papers.
Ngayon dito, why? What is the…What’s the passion? It’s because I have to defend the lives of the people. Not only the criminals who created them, not only the drugs who financed them, but the civilians who were killed along the way.
And because most of them do not have money, you go out in the streets at night, there were a lot of holdups, there were a lot of rapes, they will just pull you in one dark corner and they would just ravish the women there.
The human rights starts to harp on — maybe the human rights there — on the culture of violence. My God, be honest to yourself, the culture of violence started when the drug problem was allowed to go astray all these years. Nobody was doing about it? Except in Davao because I was very strict and the police and the security forces had my backing. And so there were a lot of encounters and therefore a lot died.
And I was the favorite whipping boy of the human rights for simply out of the numbers. And I said because people are working and because I support them. I defend them. If all of these things were done killing people in the line of duty, and one thing is fundamental for all, the military, the police and the security forces and even the security guards assisting in the arrest—the private security guards.
I told everybody when I became the President: Go out and hunt for them. Arrest them. Announce your authority if there is still time to do it and place him under arrest and tell him that he is being placed under the custody of the law. And if he does not submit… You know if the criminal — as a police, your duty is to arrest and if there is a resistance you have to overcome the resistance to bring him to the court of justice if there is a warrant for his arrest.
And if there is none and you catch him selling shabu, committing a crime in your presence or about to commit a crime in your presence or has, in fact, committed a crime in your presence, you do not need a warrant. Just go ahead and announce your authority and bring him. Now, if he presents a resistance, a violent one, and if you think that he is armed with a lethal weapon and you will die then my God, shoot him dead. That was my order.
I need not repeat every time I say go out and hunt for them because you guys, you have the basic two years training about criminal law, criminal evidence and all of those things. And as a matter of fact, when I graduated and I passed the Bar, I got married very early, I had to work as a professor in the police academy in southern Mindanao, which is in Davao. I taught criminal law, criminal evidence and criminal procedure. But all of those things are already imbued in the minds of the…
No need for me really to lecture everything but the sheer number given by General Santiago of PDEA of three million. When I was in Laos I had a chance to…I had a talk with, and during my state visit, with President Widodo. And I asked him, “Mr. President how many addicts are there in your country?” And he said, “You will not believe but it’s four million.” I looked at the heavens and said, “Well, the last survey or at least the census or the data given to us by General Santiago was three…”
Let alone during my time it was about 700 then slowly it climbed to 8, 9 and by the year ends I would have about also a million additional addicts. So if you compare Indonesia which is a big — two great islands or three maybe, with 460 million, with 4 million addicts. Now compare it to my country, a very small one, 7,000 islands I said, from apart, and I have to take care of this number.
What’s the solution? Kill them all? You cannot build a nation over the bones of your countrymen. That is b******. But what about this problem now of drugs? Well, had I not been elected president, nobody would have known the sheer number of our problem. Why? Because even during the past administration, there were — the military aides, generals and all, who were the aides of the politicians, who were the candidates lining for the presidency. I said, had I not been elected president and started to squeeze everybody, we know now the number, the sheer number, four million.
Now, when I started my campaign in Davao and in — during the presidency, I said: Do not destroy my country. We are short of everything and we can hardly cope up. Do not ever tinker with the interest of my country because I will kill you. And I made a second statement: Do not destroy the youth of the land because if I do not do anything, I would have compromised the next generation.
We are short of funds. All critic, everyone of them, every country, will just say: “Why, Mr. Duterte, why don’t you just build a rehab houses and treat them?” Fine, that’s good. I like it. The problem is they should know because they are running a government similar to ours and you know what country it is. Very similar including the Constitution. That I am operating on a budget that I inherited from my predecessor. And remember that this budget that I am operating now was prepared the other year to be implemented this year and the budget next year is being prepared by us for next year’s implementation.
Wala ako…There was no money. I could not get the money from the Armed Forces and transfer it to the Department of Health. I cannot do that. It is not allowed. It will be like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It ain’t allowed. So I had to just stand there helpless. But with all the going on… In the past administration, the culture of violence was already there.
Please take note of the statistics. What the victims then were children raped, family inside the house massacred everyday.
The volume of crime before—the volume of crime now is just pittance. Dito lang kasi… It’s only in Manila where there’s a lot of fighting but in the other, wala na. We are down by 50 percent. Forty-nine in Mindanao, in the crime rate against — crimes of person or crimes against property. So we had to work double time. I said target the big ones. And when they say the big ones they are sprawled with shorts and dirty shirts.
Why? Do you think that they are really..? They are the big ones actually selling you know…They come here do business in our country, selling everything in sight and during nighttime they go to Chinatown and the selling of drugs, the transaction is always a brisk activity.
So we had to act. Why? Because it is a self-preservation thing. The four million is not concentrated in one barangay. They are spread throughout the Philippines. And with four million into shabu, what do you think will happen to the next generation? They don’t understand it because it is not their concern.
Were it would the lives of their citizens they would have done worse. [inaudible] is not their problem. They always try to sport about human rights and everything. That human rights issue was against me ever since I became mayor and if you’re from the Davao, Mindanao you know that. It was an issue, it was always an issue of women and drugs killing — extrajudicial.
That I had several wives. And well, my wives, they have left me. I have forgiven them, so that’s not an issue anymore.
But remember that issue against me during the last presidential election was a non-issue. You were all witnesses. There were never issue came out until the time when I was hitting the ratings up to 32 and stayed there to win the election of 15 million voting for me with the majority with sheer number of six million over my next.
Why? I come from Mindanao. Some of you do not even know where Mindanao is. No offense intended. Why? From the outside I came in here. I was the only non-persona in the national stage. Where did I get the 15 million and a margin of six million? It was in the messaging. One of the greatest victories by that margin of almost seven million. What was my capital stock?
My face? Nobody knew me. I was a probinsiyano. Neither was I an actor ever since. I am just an ordinary face in the streets. What money? If you only know. There were a lot of big business here who contributed money, I’d like to tell you now. And if you want to know who they are, you ask me after this.
For those who had business with government, never mind. I was prepared to lose, for anyway I was not prepared to win. The political party was a moribund one. It was a local party for all of the elections participated. But I just got into the wagon and used it and the little money from Davaoeños and for the limited time that I could visit. I did not even have one single Governor in Luzon except Imee Marcos. Wala akong barangay captain, neither a councilor nor mayor or congressman. So, what’s the message? The message is, I promised them: You guys, no corruption and it will be a clean government, I assure you. I promised you to end the travails of the drug problem hitting our young populace. And I am doing it. And there are some guys that are killed along the way and criminals.
Economic or economics will come. Make the country peaceful and they will come. Erase corruption and they will come. Now why do you think I say that? Eh you look at Davao. You have been to Davao I’m sure. Why? People can walk there safely without any problem. They go out at night, they are not being mugged or molested. And my orders to the police was: Ask your beautiful daughter and your wife to walk the streets at night in Davao City. If they go home or if they come home undisturbed, unbridled by their activity of joy going around, unmolested, then that is the standard I want for my constituents.
And just if given enough time, and in the fullness of God’s time, we will have it. We will have it. I will force the issue against the Filipino people. Ito ang sundin natin. No corruption.
So I ask that every Cabinet member or guys now in government, for all of us, not even a whisper lest Ceasar’s wife, you must be beyond whisper. Because then, we lose our friendships. I got all of my friends there because I have trust in them. But I said the only thing that I ask them: No corruption.
Now in this, back to drugs. I have to do what I have to do. One it is self- preservation of the race. I have to protect the children. Now, imagine the last previous administration, without being specific about the President. Look at the nature of the crimes committed then.
You have children, one year old, 18 months raped, a mother killed because she was becoming the devil in the house. A son raping a grandmother and all of these things. Crimes against chastity, crimes against all persons. Now, we get several murders, I remember — remember that when I started this campaign, there are policemen here. Remember, I started by firing several police generals.
I warned them to resign before I — I’ll be sworn to. Remember that they were also paid. Remember that there are many policemen now in the wanted list and they are appropriately called ninja of the group. This is the warning that I gave you — well I said this several times: Be careful. And I said to you guys, kayong mga security, the army people, hindi ito kaya ng isang tao. If I go out suddenly or suddenly I disappear from the scene of the presidency, if the problem would outlast me: Please take care of this problem because I think no President and even me can solve it without your help.
Now, whoever succeeds me, it’s your take. But you have to do help me. Sisirain talaga ang bayan natin. Believe me. Sisirain. Then you should read Ioan Grillo’s… Saan ‘yung libro ‘nung ano? [shows the book of Ioan Grillo] This is a book which I have distributed to the officers’ corps. But I do not think I had a chance to visit here before. It’s Ioan Grillo, it says “Gangster Warlords”. This is actually the history of Escobar and if you have read the Narcos? This is the way the south American countries failed and fell one by one.
It is really a non-fiction and it’s all there for you to read. Exactly the same. May I end… I said be careful that there are about 5,000 barangay captains in my list. Nagda-dalawang isip ako, I’m trying to vacillate whether to release it or not, or simply if you will read it, you will be discouraged.
You will be downhearted because these guys are elected by the people in an election which is supposed to take place next month.
I pleaded to Congress, call off the elections because this guy would still try, they have the money. And what is really worst is there are policemen, 6,000 of them. Hindi ko… I cannot even announce them anymore. I would not have the time to announce their names individually.
So what I would like to know and this is also whether the Justice department because there are prosecutors in that also corrupt. And I will just send the list to the DILG, Local Government Secretary Sueno.
Hindi ko na kaya kasi if I read it, tapos magpapatayan, if I read all the names and they would start to cleanse themselves among themselves to prevent, you know, being drawn into the vortex of the shabu, mahihirapan tayo.
But we are placing our children in dan[ger]. If you think that it cannot be solved by the civilians then I’m telling you know, solve it for yourself. For after all, you are mandated by the Constitution to preserve the country, which means to say, the youth, the future Filipinos, save them, do your work and prevent the erosion of the integrity of our country.
Wala talaga eh. ‘Di ko nga… If I cannot do it, nobody can. You know me, you know the rest of those who ran during the last election. You know their character. You know their — the limits of their persona. If I cannot do it, then give them 1,000 years, they cannot do it. That’s a warning.
I’m not asking you to do anything drastic or extraordinary. I’m just asking you to sleep on it very carefully because the portals of the national government has been opened and narco-politics has crept in.
De Lima. Do not delude yourself about there kneeling down. I warned her eight months ago. Now before the election, I was summoned by the Senate, there was rice smuggling and in the course of Senate hearing, Mr. Enrile, the senator asked me: “If you find Bangayan smuggling rice in your city, what will you do?” And I said: “Mr. Senator, this guy is robbing us of 7 billion a year of taxes. If I find him in Davao City, I’ll kill him, for 7 million.”
Then Jinggoy Estrada, the ever — he’s listening now, I think it’s live — the smart aleck, he would just also. “Ano ‘yun? What’s that? What did you say?” He was blinking his left eye. I said, “Mr. Senator, I’d give you an answer you want to hear. Papatayin ko ‘yan ‘pag nakita ko sa Davao. He has done so harm, 7 billion is 7 billion.”
Now, I’ll give you a computation. I’ll close my talks here. There are estimated three. Huwag na ‘yung akin. Leave out the… That will have to sort out mine.
Until now, I’m trying to validate, revalidate and validate and revalidate so that I’d be fair to everybody.
The latest is from the military, to the police, to the PDEA, the drug enforcement, then I again insisted, it goes back to a civilian agency, DILG, validate it, review it before I finally give it to somebody else’s possession, sabi ko sa kanila.
Now, the national has already opened to narco-politics. I do not think that it would be good to have the elections sa barangay. I do not even think that… There’s a few months away, we will have again the local elections. Since, I really do not know. Maybe… that’s what I said, if you do not want me, because there are people who want me to oust me. Starting from a country outside. The only thing that they could do is criticize without even looking for the truth.
Iyong newspaper mo ma’am. ‘Yung newspaper. If you are a friend, if you are an ally, if you are joined by a Western alliance, you should do this. It’s a dormitory, apartment, bunk houses, and they have built it for us. Ni hi, no ha. No announcement. And it would house 1,600.
I ordered the military to open up the military camps because it is only the military, the agency which has so many big tracts of lands, and I ordered them to open up spaces para ilagay ito. This is now in Fort Magsaysay. It will be completed by October 15. We’ll have the opening. This is how you treat your friends. You do not go above reprimanding.
When I was mayor, I said I was the favorite whipping boy. Good. You know but these idiots, they have not realized that I’m already the President.
When there’s an issue about human rights, since you’re all members of the United Nations, you go there and ventilate the issue. And maybe ask one of the commissions there, organic bodies, WTO, WHO, or the Human Rights Commission to send a rapporteur which is really an investigator. Investigate him. Then make a report back to the body. Or maybe by the security council, and they can have their recommendations.
If they want me investigated, fine. So I invited them because there are seem to be… I don’t know but there in a limbo because I challenged them and I said, I wrote them a letter. The United States, Obama, the Human Rights, the EU, come to the Philippines and investigate me.
It shall be open to the public. Ask me any question under the sun. The only thing that I ask of you is to afford me the right to be heard and then allow me some questions so that I would know that you are not keeping lies on me based on the report of the… I said it was a political issue, in Davao every election.
Now, when I ran for the president, I said it was non-issue to me until after I was hitting the rating. And so, some people from the State Department then from the UN started to say and threatening, you know…It’s about time that we change the rules here. Human rights threatening me with the International Court of Justice case, which is stupid.
You know the crime that you are accusing me must be a crime in my own country. There is no crime at all in our law books, in our criminal world which says that the President cannot threaten criminals by saying, go out of my city because I will kill you.
There is no crime at all of that nature. So when I say that do not destroy the children of my country or else I will kill you, there is no crime in our revised or the original statutes of criminal system.
So that was the reason why I do not — I gave them the best of my epithets, my slur and curses for axing, acting too stupid and bringing me into the public international scene and on my shoulders the Filipino people. Because it would put the Filipinos in shame everywhere when you do that.
And that is why I am the guy, if I don’t respect you anymore, be prepared for the worst because I can give you gallons of gallons of epithets, curses and…But look at this guy when they are — they joke them, and then I said I will not pity them. Eh p****** i** niyan. The translation of that in our Filipino diction, even to pronounce it and grammar because that thing says, son of a bitch, and the ladies would pronounce it, son of a gun. But we have never used the word son of a whore.
It is the invention of the press and the people there up there. Ngayon, people judge best when they condemn. Ganon ‘yan. Especially if they are for condemnation, they are good at it. Well, I said I am thankful because I insist that we’re re-aligned. That there will be no more exercises next year. Do not prepare, I told Defense Secretary Lorenzana. Do not make preparations for next year’s…I do not want it anymore and I will chart an independent foreign policy.
We will not break our alliances—the US–RP, but we need not really, you know, break or abrogate existing treaties because they say that it could provide us with the umbrella.
I ask you frankly, give me your answer from your rank, we will maintain our military alliance because I said, they say that we need it for our defense.
Should World War III comes to a fore up in the civilization, do you think we still have time to discuss Third World War? When all the ICBMs, when all the Poseidons are underneath the sea are—where will we be? See you in heaven.
Salamat po.
By the way ladies and gentlemen, I am losing two policemen a day in the fight against criminality. Everyday I go out of my office to, even how far it is. I’ve been to every place even if, and I have ordered the Presidential plane, the jet plane to be converted into an air ambulance. I’ll take care of myself, but I need to — the AFP got about 5 billion new equipment in your hospitals. I want to protect you, I said the reason why I invited them is they should also look into the records how many soldiers and policemen were killed in this campaign.
If it’s just a matter of extrajudicial killing, I would have not lost every single man. All you have to do is just kneel down and shot them at the back but we’re not doing it. I said I’m losing on the average two policemen a day so just that you would be informed about these things.
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