Did Duterte really kill all those people?

I was with Chairman Chito Gaston of the Commission on Human Rights at the Kapihan sa Anabel (in Quezon City) last Saturday when he said he would investigate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s reported claim of having killed 1,700 police characters over the past so many years. I had no problem believing Gaston, but I had difficulty believing the mayor. How could anyone possibly kill all those people in a city like Davao and still go around on his motorbike without provoking a shooting war and getting bumped off by his victims’ surviving relatives and friends?

I told Gaston that unless he came up with the evidence, he would have to criminally charge Duterte with trying to impersonate the Khmer Rouge butcher Pol Pot or the English hangman Albert Pierrepoint. This is precisely my problem with the good Mayor. His claims are simply unreal and incredible. This was not the Duterte I thought I knew from years before.