Philippine President wants to extend drug war to a year

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he might extend his war on drugs for six more months.

Edgar Matobato, 57, told the nationally televised Senate committee hearing that he heard Duterte order some of the killings and acknowledged he himself carried out about 50 of the abductions and deadly assaults, including a suspected kidnapper who they fed to a crocodile in 2007 in southern Davao del Sur province.

“I received reports from the military, police and the validation of PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency)”, he was quoted saying.

The Philippine president insisted: “Just give me a little extension of maybe another six months”.

“There will be another explosion, believe me”, the President said during a meeting with survivors and families of the victims in the night market bombing here early this month.

He has been accused of encouraging the extrajudicial killings of thousands of drug dealers and users since he assumed the presidency in June, and Saturday said he was not aware of the severity of the drug problem until he became president.

“Even if I wanted to I can not kill them all because the last report would be this thick”, he said, referring to a new police list of people including top officials suspected of being involved in the drugs trade.

Duterte said that he did not realize the magnitude of the problem when he made his campaign promise to clean up the country in three to six months.

Mr. Duterte said he had expected a bomb attack after government launched intensive operations against the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu.

However, the police have claimed that they have killed 1,105 drug suspects in slightly more than two months since Duterte came to power.

The high toll and mysterious circumstances of some of the killings have alarmed rights groups, the United States and United Nations, whose concerns have drawn angry rebukes from Duterte.

During the recent Asean Summit, the intrepid Filipino leader reportedly lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama who was planning to raise human rights issues to him, labeling the latter a “son of a bitch”.