PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte denied Tuesday any state policy to kill drug suspects amid the government's bloody drug-crackdown.
Speaking to reporters in Taguig City, Duterte said the deaths of 17-year-old Kian Lloyd Delos Santos and 19-year-old Carl Angelo Arnaiz were not tantamount to a "policy" of killing drug offenders.
The President called Senator Risa Hontiveros "stupid" to issue an "insulting" claim about supposed government's policy against drug suspects.
"How could that be a policy? Two killings? Two gruesome murders?" Duterte said referring to the killings of Delos Santos and Arnaiz.
"Two were killed. Let's say their deaths are murder, I asked Hontiveros, 'Is that already a policy? Is that a baseline of a policy?' She's stupid. It's an insult to say it's a policy of the police to kill," Duterte said.
The President made the statement after Philippine National Police chief Director General Ronald Dela Rosa wept anew when Hontiveros interpellated him at the Senate inquiry on the drug war deaths.
At the Senate hearing conducted earlier in the day, Dela Roza broke down after Hontiveros said that there might a government's policy to kill "for the sake of administration's war on drugs."
Dela Rosa, for his part, said he was hurt that the policemen were accused of implementing such policy.
The commander-in-chief came to Dela Rosa's defense, accusing the senator of merely "politicizing" the case of the two slain teenagers.
Duterte also slammed Hontiveros' "hypocrisy" and "pretended grief" when she tried to show empathy to victims of administration's war on illegal drugs.
"For you to cry [over drug-related deaths], that's a mere show. That's a pretended grief, otherwise known as hypocrisy," the President said.
Police officers have been subject to criticisms following the cases of Delos Santos and Arnaiz, who were both killed in Caloocan City.
Despite the issues hounding the police force, Duterte reiterated his support to Dela Rosa and his men and encouraged them to just fulfill their duty.
"Continue your work. Confront the criminals. In the performance of your duty, then make the arrest, and if there is a serious violent resistance, overcome the resistance," he said. (SunStar Philippines)