Neither obstinate denial nor bare braggadocio can enable the Duterte administration to blunt the preliminary examination to be conducted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The facts and figures do not lie on the killings committed by the Davao Death Squad allegedly at the behest of then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and the recent spate of summary executions related to President Duterte’s deadly war against drugs, all of which amount to crimes against humanity.

Criminal justice, whether international or domestic, will eventually catch up with Duterte notwithstanding his cavalry of apologists.

No less than the President himself on numerous instances has admitted the commissions and/or prodded and condoned the extrajudicial killings (EJK).

Following are the incriminating admissions and utterances of Duterte:

• “I will not stop until the last pusher on the streets is fully exterminated.”

• “I will kill all the drug lords. Make no bones about it.”

• “We say it’s not the work of police to be wrapping people with plastic and [putting] them in the bag. That is not a job of the police. I just told [them] that one bullet will do.”

• “In Davao I used to do it personally. Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why can’t you?”

• “And I’d go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also … I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”

• “… human rights is always the anti-thesis of government.”

• He compared himself to Hitler and would be “happy to slaughter” three million drug addicts.

• “Crime against humanity? In the first place, I’d like to be frank with you: are they humans? What is your definition of a human being?"

• “Your duty requires you to overcome the resistance of the person you are arresting ... [if] he resists, and it is a violent one ... you are free to kill the idiots, that is my order to you.”

• “Do your duty, and if in the process you kill one thousand persons because you were doing your duty, I will protect you.”

• “If you destroy my country, I will kill you. If you destroy our children, I will kill you. If I am asked by anybody, including the Commission on Human Rights, I do not know you.”

• “I will never allow a military man, a government man or a policeman na makukulong for doing his duty and obeying my order.”

• “This is my order. Hunt for them. Arrest them if possible. If they confront you with a violent stance, especially if they’re armed and you are in danger of being killed — My God, shoot the idiot, and shoot him dead. 'Yan ang order ko.”

• “Pag 'yan ang sinunod ng pulis and military, huwag kayong matakot. I and I alone will be liable for that.”

• “The police chief who supervised the killing of Parojinog and Marcos who is being prosecuted now, they will have my protection.”

EDCEL C. LAGMAN