Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Sunday he’s adding six more months to his deadly war on drugs — breaking a bloody campaign promise he used to win a landslide election.
“I did not realize how severe and how serious the problem of drug menace in this republic was until I became president,” the hotheaded president said in a press briefing.
“We would need time to put everything in order. Give me a little extension, maybe of another six months.”
He said there were “hundreds of thousands” of criminals he still needs to target, and claimed some drug rackets are “operated now by people in the government,” but did not offer specifics.
“The problem is I can’t kill them all," he said, according to PhilStar.
Duterte, the former mayor of Davao, handily won the presidency in May on a promise to wipe out the country’s rampant drug crimes in three to six months.
Since taking office just 10 weeks ago, Duterte has overseen the killing of more than 3,500 people suspected of dealing or using drugs. But police said less than half of these deaths came during official law enforcement operations. About 58% of the victims were killed by unknown assailants, police said.
Duterte’s killing campaign has drawn global scorn from other leaders and from the United Nations.
But Duterte’s bloody reign received little mainstream attention until he vulgarly warned President Obama not to discuss it with him.
Right before the two were supposed to meet earlier this month, Duterte told reporters he did not want Obama to “throw questions” at him over the deaths, and called the American President a “son of a bitch."
Hours later, Obama’s team canceled the meeting.
Duterte then expressed “regret” for his foul comments, and the Philippine government claimed he and Obama met informally at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.
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