MANILA, Philippines – When he was still a prosecutor, President Rodrigo Duterte said there was one tactic that helped Davao City authorities when going after criminals.

“We planted evidence. We arrested persons but we released them, [then] telling him that it was this person who squealed on him. And then when he goes out for the killing, then we said that it was this fellow who really did it, who did you in,” the President, who was city prosecutor before becoming Davao City mayor, said in an early morning press conference on Sunday, August 21.

“We first planted the intrigues so that we would know… from where they came from,” he said. 

The President, in his statements during the early morning press briefing, implied that this strategy is being used by the police now, but at the same time denied their involvement in extrajudicial killings.

“We say it’s not the work of police to be wrapping people with plastic and [putting] him in the bag. That is not a job of the police. I just told [them] that one bullet will do. Why do you have to wrap it? I said [don’t] waste your time,” he said. 

“I have learned a lot during my prosecution days,” he said.

More than 1,000 cases of drug-related killings have been recorded since the administration waged an all-out war against drugs, said police chief Ronald dela Rosa during a Senate hearing last Thursday, August 18. 

Duterte urged Senator Leila de Lima to proceed with the probe on the spate of killings. He also invited the “United Nations expert” to ask him in public about his administration’s anti-narcotics efforts.

Duterte also challenged Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur for summary executions, to come to the Philippines and “count the numbers of deaths also incurred by government with [her] fingers to guide him how many deaths were cost.”

Callamard earlier accepted Malacañang’s invitation to come to the Philippines and investigate drug-related killings – but Malacañang later said she misunderstood Chief Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo’s statements, and said there is no invitation. (READ: PH rejects ‘interference’ of UN in ‘household affairs’) – Rappler.com