Davao City is the Philippines’ third largest city. It is found in Mindanao. Rodrigo Duterte, the city mayor for many years now, is known as a staunch crimefighter. However, crime rate in the city has not been reduced. In fact, the rate of criminality even shot up during the several years that Duterte has been fighting criminality in his city.

But Duterte is also accused of promoting a death squad in the name of crimefighting, something that the mayor vehemently denies. The Davao Death Squad has been notoriously known for ending the criminal careers of lowlife as much as those of the erring elite. This is one case of vigilantism that is apparently producing dubious results for the sake of ridding the city of criminal elements.

The international group Human Rights Watch has investigated on the so-called vigilante machinery that involves ‘current and former Davao police officers and local officials’ who ‘select the targets and equip local thugs with handguns or knives.’ They board motorcycles with no license plates, and then kill their targets in broad daylight in busy places such as public markets and city streets. For the past 10 years, there have already been 800 Davao city residents killed by the Davao Death Squad

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Via Far Eastern Economic Review