MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Filipino President Duterte threatens to throw corrupt officials off a helicopter

“Let's not make any drama, I will personally gun you down if nobody else will do it,” Duterte said without blinking.

“If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out. I have done this before. Why would I not do it again?,” said Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte during a speech to victims of a typhoon on Tuesday, a clip of which was posted later on a video feed.

 Duterte said he once hurled a Chinese man suspected of rape and murder out of a helicopter and warned he would have had no qualms about doing it again. Some senators have warned Duterte that he risks impeachment over his comments.

According to police sources, more than 5,900 people have been killed since Duterte took office in late June and declared a war on drugs, leading to fears of mass extrajudicial killings and a breakdown in the rule of law.

Duterte's latest threat comes just a few weeks after he admitted killing people during his 22 years as a mayor of Davao city, sometimes riding a motorcycle looking for “encounters to kill”. He said those killings were part of legitimate police operations, including a hostage incident.

He also said that six people arrested last week during a seizure of more than half a tonne of methamphetamine, known locally as “shabu”, in the capital were fortunate he was out of town. “They were lucky I was not in Manila that time. If I had known there were that much shabu inside a house, I would definitely kill you,” he said. “Let's not make any drama, I will personally gun you down if nobody else will do it.”

It remains unclear when or where the helicopter incident Duterte spoke of took place and his spokesman, Ernesto Abella, suggested it may never have actually happened and that it was all an “urban legend.”

Duterte has at various times claimed he killed people. In an interview with Rappler in late 2015, before he took over the presidency, he said that he recently killed three people. During the same period, responding to reports that “he killed 700 people,” he said: “They underestimate the figures ... [I killed] around 1,700.”

The UN's top human rights envoy has called for an investigation into Duterte's claims of killing people, to which Duterte last week responded by calling him “stupid”, an “idiot” and a “son of a bitch” who should go back to school.