President Rodrigo Duterte said he killed ‘to protect people” after a senator said his admission of killing criminals when he was Davao City mayor could be a ground for impeachment.

“I said killed about three of them, because there were three of them. I didn’t really know how many bullets from my gun went through inside their bodies,” Duterte said in a press conference at the Davao City International Airport on Friday.

“But it happened and I said I cannot lie about it,” he said. Duterte stressed that stories about “ killing people kneeling down with their hands tied at the back, that’s all bullshit.”

Duterte arrived late Friday from state visits in Cambodia and Singapore.

“What’s wrong in being, you are pictured to be a killer. So, at least I killed to protect people. I am not here a dictator killing my political opponents to stay in power,” said Duterte.

“So, I might have hit them all or none at all. But the fact is I was there and I fired at them. It was a pure case of kidnapping. It happened during my first term in 1988. And here comes an idiot?always an idiot almost all of them are, saying that my admission, that I shot the suspect, they were not suspect, you idiot.”

“I was in a shootout and many others in my career of the 23 years. I am a mayor that cannot tolerate oppression of civilians, and many others and small encounters,” he said.

“When I tell you now that I killed, do not term them as suspects because all of them died while they were fighting government people,” he said.

Duterte said the armed men tried to escape with the money. “We stopped them and we saw carbine ( rifle). When the windows were open, carbine (rifle) was pointed at us… They were not suspects, I suppose. But by any amount of stretching the imagination, those are people who dared to fight the law. And because I had an M16, I carried one because Davao was then a wild country, I had to restore order and I took the bull by the horns,” he added.

Duterte told business leaders in Malacanang on Monday he would go around Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble. I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”

Senator Leila de Lima, in a televised interview with CNN in New York, said Thursday Duterte’s admission could be grounds for his impeachment as president.

“That is betrayal of public trust and that constitutes high crimes because mass murders certainly fall under category of high crimes and high crimes is a ground for impeachment under the Constitution,” de Lima told CNN on Thursday

Amidst criticism against the alleged extrajudicial killings which has surpassed 5,000 on his administration, Duterte expressed confidence his order to kill criminals who fight authorities makes him fit to his position.

“Given the problems of my country, yes, I have a four million drug addicts in my country. So, that is not a joke,” he said. Robina Asido/DMS