Go Mayor Rod!

"Nobody but nobody on this planet monopolizes evil," Duterte said in an unambiguous message to the bombers. "What you can do, I can do better."

I think I like this guy! Maybe that’s what the Philippines needs more of, mayors who don’t take any crap from the whacko Muslim terrorists.

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Filipino mayor vows to restore peace at point of a gun

By Jim Gomez
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 12, 2003

DAVAO, Philippines – Riding his Harley Davidson with a loaded pistol at the ready, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte helps patrol his city at night – its streets long cleansed of offenders he once threatened to strip naked and manacle to lampposts.

The sprawling port of Davao had been a chaotic murder capital before his Wild West sheriff tactics transformed it into a relatively tranquil and progressive haven in the otherwise violent southern Philippines.

However, that peace was shattered last week when a bomb ripped through Davao's airport, killing 21 people, including an American missionary and two children.

Enraged, Duterte now says he will hunt down and punish members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a large Muslim separatist group blamed for the March 4 bombing that also wounded more than 100 people.

It was one of the deadliest terror strikes in recent years on the southern island of Mindanao, where Muslim insurgents have been waging a bloody separatist rebellion since the 1970s.

"Nobody but nobody on this planet monopolizes evil," Duterte said in an unambiguous message to the bombers. "What you can do, I can do better."

Duterte, 58, is a macho, tough-talking former city prosecutor who was first elected mayor in 1987. At that time, communist guerrillas had turned Davao into a laboratory for their urban warfare. They paraded in public with weapons and assassinated police and soldiers.

An anticommunist vigilante group called Alsa Masa emerged to help government troops battle the communists.
The fighting was so fierce that residents dubbed a communist rebel stronghold in nearby Agdao village "Nicaragdao," after the bloody Marxist insurgency that once gripped Nicaragua in central America.

As the communists retreated into the mountains, Duterte sought them out and negotiated a peace deal with them. That allowed him to focus on crime.

Soon after he appeared on a local television station and named suspected criminals and drug dealers, about a dozen suspects turned up dead in still-unsolved killings.

Hand-scrawled notes attached on some of the bodies read: "Don't follow my example, I'm a bad guy."
A strong anti-crime campaign restored order. In crowded seafood restaurants and pubs, customers even respected a smoking ban. Drivers obeyed traffic rules and most streets were free of litter.

For a while, Davao was shielded from rebel bombings, ambushes and widespread crime that hounded other southern provinces. The predominantly Roman Catholic city of more than 1 million was drawing foreign tourists and investors through the 1990s.

Overbooked hotels were turning away guests just days before the airport bombing.

Duterte previously had struck an unwritten truce with Muslim rebels: They could enter Davao as long as they were unarmed and did not create trouble. A police official said unarmed rebels were often seen relaxing in a Davao mall.

But two weeks before the deadly bombing, Duterte said he had intelligence information that pointed to an impending MILF attack in the city. He said he traveled to a MILF stronghold to seek out reclusive rebel leader Hashim Salamat, but failed to meet him.

He also went to Manila, but failed to convince government officials to declare martial law on Mindanao because of spreading clashes between Muslim guerrillas and government troops.
Then came the bomb blast.

Duterte said the bombing also made him reverse his opposition to a plan to deploy U.S. combat troops against Muslim extremists in the south.

"I objected to that, but now, you want to see my heart? Inside, (U.S. President George W.) Bush and I are already buddies."

Duterte ordered random police raids on homes of suspected Muslim separatists. On Sunday, he appeared on his regular TV show and warned terrorists not to enter Davao "or you won't get out alive."

Ray