Rodrigo Duterte keeps admitting to killing people; his supporters shrug it off

It should have been a shocking admission.

On Monday, Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, bragged about killing people. He said that when he was a city mayor he used to hunt suspects on his motorcycle, shooting people on the spot. The goal, he said, was to encourage police officers to do the same.

"In Davao I used to do it personally. Just to show to the [policemen] that if I can do it, why can't you?" he said.

"I go around in Davao (on) a big bike and I would just patrol the streets and looking for trouble. I was really looking for an encounter to kill."

This was not the first time Duterte appeared to admit to murder - nor would it be the first time his supporters dismissed his remarks. On Wednesday, Vitaliano Aguirre II, his justice secretary, said the president "exaggerated," and while Duterte said he went "looking" to kill, he actually "must have been forced."

All this fits a pattern: Duterte calls for killing alleged criminals, then denies a personal or government role. It's a strategy that helped get him elected and that keeps him popular as his self-proclaimed "war" claims thousands upon thousands more.

To understand why a sitting president might cop to murder, consider that Duterte has done all this before. During his two decade tenure as the mayor of Davao, a city in the southern Philippines, he earned the nickname "the death squad mayor" because of the teams of hitmen that stalked the streets, shooting petty criminals and government critics.

When rights groups investigated him, he claimed he played no role. But when he ran for president, he promised to replicate the Davao model on a national scale. His government would "kill all" the criminals. There would be death and death and death, he said, until the fish "grow fat."

This apocalyptic vision has proved popular. Having weathered colonial plunder, a kleptocratic dictator and then rule by a corrupt and feudalistic elite, many Filipinos see him as a saviour, the type of leader who would bleed the system clean.

People are also incredibly fed up with rampant crime in their communities and don't believe the country's overburdened and inefficient courts can deliver the justice they crave.

Since Duterte took power on June 30, at least 5,900 people have been killed. The police say that 2,086 were shot dead in raids and 3,841 were gunned down "vigilante-style" by unknown attackers.

Independent reporting on police operations in the "drug war" has found troubling inconsistencies and strong evidence of excessive use of force. The government claims these "vigilante-style" killings are out of its control, but a recent Washington Post investigation found one such killing was actually staged by high-ranking cops - a dark echo of the "death squad" days.

International condemnation has done little to stop the violence. Local critics rightly fear speaking out.

Duterte is promising more death in 2017. We can't be shocked when he delivers.