Bangkok: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered police to escalate his war on illegal drugs that has already killed almost 300 people across the archipelago nation since the start of July.
Mr Duterte shrugged off alarm over the rising body count in his first state of the nation address to parliament, declaring that drugs were drowning his country and human rights were no excuse to shield criminals.
"Double your efforts. Triple them if need be," the tough-talking former provincial mayor said in a message to police.
"We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier and the last pusher have surrendered or been put behind bars ... or below ground if you wish," he said.
Human rights groups say police data showing that Mr Duterte's crackdown has claimed the lives of 293 suspected users and pushers in police operations between July 1 and July 24 does not include those slain in extrajudicial killings by vigilantes.
There have been many reports of accused drug users and pushers being executed and left on streets with cardboard signs allegedly "admitting" their guilt.
Mr Duterte, 71, was swept into power at elections in May after pledging to wipe out crime with the same "shoot-to-kill" methods critics say he used as the long-time mayor of the southern city of Davao.
Since taking office Mr Duterte has vowed to pardon police who might be charged with human rights violations for perpetrating his relentless crackdown, and compared himself to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
"I will retire with the reputation of Idi Amin," he said in a recent speech, referring to the late African ruler whose 1970s regime was responsible for large-scale rights abuses.
"I will not let my country go to the dogs," he said.
In his state of the nation address, Mr Duterte told MPs that 120,000 people had surrendered to police in the past month and 70,000 were drug pushers.
Police have also arrested 3749 suspects with links to drugs.
"The sheer number and problem will drown us," he said, adding he was considering the use of military bases as drug rehabilitation centres.
Police plan to erect a large billboard outside the force's Manila headquarters to show a daily tally of drug suspects who have been arrested or killed during operations.
Under the crackdown, police knocked on the doors of 129,753 houses from July 1 to July 24 to ask suspects to voluntarily surrender.
But rights groups, many MPs and Mr Duterte's own Vice-President Leni Robredo, a social activist, have expressed alarm over the rise in vigilante killings and attacks across the country.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Zeid al-Hussein on Monday called on Mr Duterte to end the killings.
"The number of killings of suspected drug traffickers by police and others reported almost daily since the May 9 election is shocking," Prince Zeid wrote.
Catholic bishops in the predominantly Catholic nation of 100 million have also denounced the crackdown.
"Can we correct evil by doing evil?" Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo asked in a Mass that coincided with Mr Duterte's speech.
Bishop Pabillo said there is no proof the victims were engaged in drug trafficking.
"No one told us that, aside from the cardboards placed on top of them," he said.
"Even if it's true that they are drug pushers and they did something wrong to other people, what about their families? They themselves have been done wrong."
Phelim Kine, deputy director in Asia for the US-based Human Rights Watch, said "as long as President Duterte turns a blind eye to – or implicitly or explicitly encourages – summary killings, the fundamental right to life of all Filipinos is at risk from potentially random extrajudicial violence".
An opinion poll taken late in June showed that 63 per cent of Filipinos believe that Mr Duterte will make good on most, if not all, of his promises to stamp out criminality, corruption and illegal drugs.
with agencies
