Philippines President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has won the election on a gory promise of eradicating crime by shooting the criminals and dumping their bodies in the sea for the fish to get fat as reported here and in many other articles.

Although this is a promise that has resonated with the voters and allowing him to win the election, history and experience shows to us that almost all of this will end up in nightmare scenarios and eventually descend into authoritarian states and total chaos.

I have no sympathy for disposing of criminals in this manner.

The problem is not the issue of shooting criminals on sight, the issue is who decides who is a criminal and who is not? Can we really trust the police to decide, especially in the Philippines where police and human rights abuse is allegedly a dime a dozen? I presume the level of alleged corruption in the public service will only increase.

Surely there will be personal vengeance disguised as criminal eradication in play. How often have we heard that the police opened fire because the criminals lunged at them with parangs?

The idea of courts and justice is that everyone gets to have their say and a so-called independent judge would decide, but even that is suspect in some countries.

However, has a free-for-all on criminals ever worked anywhere in the world? Thailand has tried it before, have the criminals disappeared?

Anybody can talk tough and say they will kill the criminals, if the police know the criminals, why don’t they arrest them; obviously there is not enough evidence, so is there evidence to kill them then?

If there is evidence, then get a court order to justify killing them, not indiscriminately when and whom the police decide. Even in America this does not work with so many cases of unjustified shooting, you think this is going to work in the Philippines?

It has not stopped there. Recently he has justified killing journalists, too. Really, later it will the dark-skinned, the invalid and so on.

These kinds of uncivilised behaviour will not stop, normally tough-talking leaders will only be doing this to hide what they are doing in the background, like allegedly plundering the national wealth or building their own army of criminal activity.

However the president was elected by the voters, so they deserve whatever is in store for them. Obviously they have forgotten the excesses of the Marcos era.

Now reports say the Philippines are clearing the streets of children and people who stay out late.

I wonder when they will target politicians who lie, misbehave and plunder national wealth. Surely if criminals and journalist deserve to die and children rounded up, politicians who are paid from taxpayers monies and yet don’t deliver and help themselves to national wealth should also be subject to the same treatment?

Will Duterte target the politicians next?