Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to have his son killed Thursday if the allegations of his involvement in a drug trafficking scheme are true.
Paolo Duterte, 42, appeared before the Philippine senate earlier this month to deny accusations from an opposing political leader that he was a gang member who helped smuggle methamphetamine from China, the Guardian reported Thursday. The president’s statement came in response to national protests against his drug war and martial law, that have claimed the lives of more than 3,800 people.
“I said before my order was: ‘If I have children who are into drugs, kill them so people will not have anything to say,'” Duterte, 72, said at a Wednesday speech. “So I told Pulong [Paolo’s nickname]: ‘My order is to kill you if you are caught. And I will protect the police who kill you, if it is true.'”
Duterte has said he’d be “happy” to kill 3 million drug addicts if the act rid the country of illegal substances. One of Duterte’s campaign platforms was the promise to kill up to 100,000 drug traffickers and addicts during his administration, the Telegraph reported.
Duterte has a long track record of boisterous rhetoric, often backed up by brutal crackdowns from his regime. He called on police in August to kill any “idiot” drug dealers who resisted arrest, and in July, he vowed to eat the livers of ISIS militants who occupy the country’s largest majority Muslim city, Marawi.
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