“License to Kill”

eputation as an anti-crime crusader buoyed his election to the Philippine Senate in 2004
and his later re-election as Manila’s mayor. 9 The then-mayor of Tagum City, Rey Uy, along
with close aides and city police officers, hired, equipped, and paid for an operation that at
its height consisted of 14 hit men and accomplices between January 2007 and March 2013.
That death squad, many members of which were on the city government payroll with the
Civil Security Unit, a City Hall bureau tasked with traffic management and providing
security in markets and schools, is implicated in the killings of at least 298 people. 10
Duterte the “Death Squad” Mayor
Rodrigo Duterte first ran for mayor of Davao
City in 1988 on a campaign to restore law
and order in the city, the largest on the
main southern island of Mindanao. 11 At
“
Am I the death squad? True. That
is true.”
― Rodrigo Duterte, May 24, 2016
that time, Davao City was known as the
“murder capital” of the Philippines. 12 Communist insurgents and government security
forces gunned down each other—and many civilians—day and night on Davao City’s streets
and barrios. 13
Duterte was elected mayor in part on his reputation as a city prosecutor said to have
targeted military and rebel abuses with equal fervor. 14 The son of a former provincial
governor, Duterte said his father taught him that elected officials must serve the greater
good no matter what it takes, like a father protecting and disciplining his family. 15
9 “Philippines election: Maverick Rodrigo Duterte wins presidency,” BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36253612.
10 “Philippines: Death Squad Linked to Hundreds of Killings,” Human Rights Watch news release, May 20, 2014,
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/20/philippines-death-squad-linked-hundreds-killings.
11 “Philippines election: Maverick Rodrigo Duterte wins presidency,” BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36253612.
12 William Branigin, “Davao Known as Philippines’ ‘Murder Capital,’” Washington Post, August 8, 1985,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/08/08/davao-known-as-philippines-murder-capital/ce938055-
0f5d-451c-9420-c2da95277dad/?utm_term=.5da6587255c8 (accessed December 13, 2016).
13 Human Rights Watch, You Can Die Anytime.
14 Ibid, p.14.
15 Ibid.
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