The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has met with one of the Philippines top suspected drug lords and has threatened to kill him.
The meeting with Chinese-Filipino drug dealer Peter Lim happened on Friday as the hardline anti-crime president warned Lime to stay away from narcotics,
“I will execute you…. I will finish you off”
Lim was singled out by the president on national television on 7 July, saying “the moment he steps out of the plane, he will die”.
The sitdown was filmed and can be found on the government’s Youtube channel with a caption describing Lim as, “one of the top drug lords in the triad involved in illegal drug operations in the country”. Unfortunately for non Filipino speakers, the video does not have subtitles.
The man in the video however, denies being the alleged drug dealer Peter Lim. Peter Lim is a common name in the Philippines, with many having ethnic Chinese heritage. He has said that he now fears for his life,
“My family is really in a deep problem now in Cebu. We are getting all the threats,”
The president responded by saying, “I will not say I’m sorry because the reason you’re here is you’re a suspected drug lord.”
President Duterte has developed a strong anti-crime reputation. As long-time mayor of Davao, Duterte would read out the names of drug suspects on his local radio programme. The shamed suspects would then later turn up dead on city streets.
Duterte had a landslide victory in the May election after pledging to kill tens of thousands of drug suspects and other criminals. The president has since publicly shamed police generals, politicians and private personalities whom he linked to narcotics A nationwide crackdown has resulted in nearly 400 drug suspects being shot dead by police or suspected anti-crime vigilantes.
Human rights groups and opposition politicians have expressed their disapproval over the deadly anti-drugs campaign. However, the government insists that all of the suspects were killed after they had fought with the police and that vigilante killings were under investigation.
