Duterte back to his crime-busting form

DAVAO CITY – It’s an image Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has been known for and might have also paved the way for his return to City Hall – a pistol-tucking official who relentlessly drives criminal elements away from this southern metropolis.

In the first two weeks into his fourth term as mayor, Duterte has proven that he is back to his old form as a sort of "Dirty Harry," doing what he believes he is best at – addressing the city’s peace and order problems.

The mayor has been issuing stern warnings to criminal elements, particularly drug pushers and robbers, short of telling them to get out of the city before he catches them.

The warnings though don’t come in plain simple language but in rough street-smart talk which, Duterte admits, he is at home with, enough to scare the wits out of notorious characters who would dare cross his path.

"I am serious at what I am doing. I cannot just take this matter sitting down. I have to do something and come up with a stable peace and order situation in the city," he said.

The drug pushers and the financiers of the illegal drug trade know very well that Duterte means business, having clashed with him in the 10 years that he was city mayor from 1988 to 1998. (He ran for Congress in 1998 and won.)

Duterte also surprised entertainment establishments here when he started conducting random inspections, warning them to strictly comply with the city ordinance prohibiting the sale of liquor after 2 a.m.

The mayor also vowed to go after syndicates behind cell phone snatchings. "Have you seen a snatcher without a hand? Don’t force me, you will feel the pain," he warned thieves in Tagalog.

Duterte did not spare the minors. He set a 10 p.m. curfew for minors and ordered the police to strictly implement the city’s anti-vagrancy ordinance.

Reporters covering the police beat noted that since Duterte assumed office two weeks ago, the number of criminal cases reported to the different police precincts has markedly decreased.

"We used to get many police stories before. But now that Duterte is back at City Hall, we can hardly get a story, especially for us who (cover the police at night)," a cameraman of a local TV station said.

After patching up his differences with Senior Superintendent Eduardo Matillano, Southern Mindanao police director, Duterte is giving the city police more support to beef up their peace and order efforts.