2-IN-1 STORY: Philippine President Acknowledges Abuses In Drug War

In this Friday, July 1, 2016, photo, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses the troops during a military ceremony in suburban Quezon City northeast of Manila, Philippines. President Duterte in a speech late Thursday acknowledged abuses in a battle against illegal drugs, which has left more than 400 suspects dead and alarmed rights activists, but is not backing down from a shoot-to-kill order for drug suspects. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte acknowledged abuses in a war on illegal drugs, which has left more than 400 people dead in a month and alarmed rights activists, but refused to back down from a shoot-to-kill order for drug suspects.

Associated Press report continues:

Duterte said in a speech late Thursday that most drug dealers and addicts slain in gunbattles with police had put up a fight, but added that he was sure some were "salvaged," a local slang for extrajudicial killings usually by law enforcers.

In the case of illegal killings, Duterte said the government will investigate.

"They really fight back, I know that," Duterte said in a speech in southern Davao city, where he built a name as a mayor for his extra tough approach to crime before winning the presidency on June 30. "I'm sure there are some who were salvaged, I am also sure of that."

Early Friday, he told reporters that he gave "shoot-to-kill" orders against drug dealers, including politicians involved in the illicit trade.

"I'll really have you killed. Look at what you're doing to the Philippines and I'll forgive you?" Duterte told reporters, apparently enraged after visiting a town police chief who was shot in the chest by a suspected drug dealer and rushed to a Davao hospital.

"My order is shoot to kill you. I don't care about human rights, you better believe me," said Duterte, a 71-year-old former government prosecutor.

Duterte's centerpiece anticrime drive, focused on an ambitious campaign promise to end the widespread drugs problem in six months, has left more than 400 drug suspects dead, many of them either in firefights with police or under suspect circumstances. More than 4,400 have been arrested, police said.

The unprecedented killings have scared more than half a million drug users and dealers who gave themselves up to police, officials said. An overwhelmed Duterte has said he was considering to set aside some areas in military camps nationwide to build rehabilitation centers for those who surrender.

A legal expert, Jose Manuel Diokno, said Duterte's latest shoot-to-kill order is, at the least, legally questionable.

Adequate safeguards exist in the country's legal system, including requirements for court warrants for arrests, to protect the public and ensure law enforcers are not given "unbridled discretion" that can lead to abuses, Diokno said.

The government's Commission on Human Rights could seek to stop the anti-crime drive through a court petition, said Diokno, who heads the Free Legal Assistance Group, a nongovernment group that provides legal help to the poor.

Sen. Leila de Lima, who led the commission previously, has sought a senate investigation of the killings but has faced opposition from Duterte's political allies. She said she supports the battle against drugs but condemned the widespread killings.

"There must be a way other than this method that brings us to our collective descent into impunity, fear, and ultimately, utter and complete inhumanity. We cannot wage the war against drugs with blood," de Lima said in a senate speech this week.

She said the dead included those who were innocent and "the proportion is rising."

Human Toll As Bodies Pile Up In Philippine Drug War

A gun lies beside the body of an alleged drug dealer shot dead by police in Manila (AFP Photo/Noel Celis)

AFP reports that Men shot and left to bleed out on busy streets, mutilated corpses dumped in vacant lots. The bodies are piling up as President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war brings terror to Filipino slums.

Hundreds of people have died since Duterte won a landslide election in May, promising to rid society of drugs and crime in six months by killing tens of thousands of criminals.

In one viral image summing up the human cost, a young woman howls in pain as she cradles her partner's blood-soaked body under the glare of television lights as horrified bystanders look on from behind yellow police crime tape.

"My husband was innocent. He never hurt anyone," Jennilyn Olayres said of her partner Michael Siaron, 30, a tricycle driver -- refuting the crude cardboard poster left behind by the motorcycle-riding gunmen killers saying "drug pusher".

Police figures showed this week that 402 drug suspects had been killed since Duterte was sworn in at the end of June. That figure does not include those slain by suspected vigilantes.

The country's top broadcaster, ABS-CBN, reported that 603 people had been killed since Duterte's May election, with 211 murdered by unidentified gunmen.

Police raids of suspected drug dealers' hideouts have led to near-nightly deaths. Most of the dead suspects -- often found face-down in pools of blood -- had pistols lying next to them in the act of resisting arrest, according to authorities.

Suspected sympathy killings by anti-drug vigilantes have also left a trail of death. One man was attacked as he drove his tricycle, his body left hanging from the humble vehicle as blood dripped onto the street.

Other people have simply turned up dead in deserted streets and vacant lots at night, their faces cocooned in packaging tape and with cardboard signs accusing them of being drug dealers hanging on their chests.

- Victims not rich -

At his first "State of the Nation" address to Congress, Duterte defended his anti-crime campaign and described the scene at Siaron's shooting as a parody of Michelangelo's 15th century Pieta marble sculpture.

"And there you are, dead and portrayed in a broadsheet like Mother Mary cradling the dead cadaver of Jesus Christ," the president said, describing the tableau as "drama".

For an alleged drug dealer, Siaron did not have a lifestyle like Mexican or Colombian cartel kingpins.

The rented hovel that was home to him and his girlfriend, made of scraps of plywood and iron sheeting, was not much bigger than a pig pen. It stood precariously on stilts atop a smelly, garbage-choked open sewer.

"At times we slept until late on purpose so we only had to worry about lunch and dinner," Olayres, a street vendor, told AFP at her partner's wake.

Held in a hall at a local government office, two more of the dead were being mourned at the same time. Olayres said Siaron was among the more than 16 million Filipino voters who had catapulted Duterte to office.

VIRAL: This photo has given the war on drugs in the Philippines a human face; will it turn the tide against President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign?

The attacks have left wives and relatives crying and fainting at the carnage, but also driven drug users and small-time dealers into frantic mass surrenders to district officials. Police say a staggering 565,806 have turned themselves in.

Many of those who presented themselves with pledges to straighten out their lives wore rubber wristbands bearing Duterte's name -- materials used during his election campaign.

Before the bodies started piling up, Manila police also launched a campaign, codenamed Oplan Rody -- the incoming president's nickname -- to rid the streets of drunks and shirtless men, who were made to do 40 pushups to avoid jail time.

A children's night curfew was also imposed in some districts, with violators and their parents made to undergo counselling.