Duterte vows to end criminality in 3 months

LAOAG CITY, Philippines – Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to stop criminality in the country within three months if elected president and would resign from office if he fails to do so.

“If elected president, give me about three to six months, I will get rid of corruption, drugs and criminality,” Duterte said during his visit to the Mariano Marcos State University in Batac City on Friday.

According to Duterte, he would allow vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to take over the reins of the government should he fail to fulfill his promise.

“If I fail in three months, better leave the country or I will step down and give the presidency to Bongbong,” Duterte said.

“They say my timeline is ambitious, you know if I am already president, in the third month I am sitting there as president and I fail because nobody believes me, I really cannot do it even if you give me 10 years of rule,” he said.

Duterte added that he has a bond with the Marcoses. He said his father Vicente Duterte was a member of the cabinet as secretary of general services for the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, the father of the senator.

“Speaking of loyalty and friendship, I am proud to say that my father was a close ally of President Marcos until his death,” he added.

Duterte said he would allow the remains of the late president to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. 

He said president Marcos was still the best president the country ever had. 

“In hindsight now, looking at the horizon of political deludes, he was still the best and the brightest. I can say that because I was around (during the Marcos years),” Duterte said.

He said his template of governance is patterned after the senior Marcos’.

Duterte said he will use the military and the police in solving criminality like what the late president Marcos did.

“He never hesitated really to use the forces of government to get what he really wanted to do to govern the country,” he said.

Duterte said the Philippines was “clean” during the first years of martial law under Marcos.

He added that he would impose death penalty of hanging on all illegal drug offenders.