PRESUMPTIVE President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday discussed his plan to fight drugs, crime and corruption and to restore the death penalty for heinous crimes.
He also called on the police scalawags to resign or retire before June 30, the date of his inauguration into office, “otherwise, they will be sent to Jolo in the lair of the Abus.”
Duterte made his statement even as the Commission on Human Rights and the Catholic Church on Monday vowed to oppose his plan to revive the death penalty.
Malacañang said it was up to Congress to decide whether or not to lift the death penalty in the Philippines.
“The lifting of the death penalty requires that the law be amended. It is best that this be tackled by the next Congress,” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said.
Under his presidency, Duterte said, the barangays will be the front-liners in identifying and going after drug users and peddlers.
He said he will recruit special civilian active auxiliaries and arm them to fight the drug lords and drug pushers.
He said he will impose a 10 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors, but his arrest order will only apply to negligent parents.
“The barangay knows the locations of the parents. They will be arrested for child abandonment under the Revised Penal Code,” Duterte said.
He said government transactions will be completed within 72 hours but asked the Commission on Audit to relax its guidelines on the spending of the budget appropriations at the local level.
He said taxi drivers must not short-change their passengers and must give them their exact change.
“Always keep loose change. On the other hand, I am asking the riding public to estimate or figure out your exact fare. Also, bring loose change,” he said.
Duterte said the death penalty by hanging must be imposed on robbery with rape and homicide.
The presidential yacht Ang Pangulo will be auctioned off so he could build a new building for the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center.
“That yacht, it’s parked somewhere, not being used and to think that our people are hungry and jobless. It would be an obscene thing to see Ang Pangulo there,” he said.
He admitted to the public that he fell ill because of the campaign.
Despite his promise to bring change in three to six months, he said could not wipe out criminality 100 percent because “there are secret crimes such as concubinage and adultery.”