Duterte was delivering a prepared speech at the Hero’s Cemetery on the outskirts of Manila and veered off-script to address impromptu comments from Jovie Espenido – the police chief of a town in the south where the mayor was killed in a raid.

In a direct message to his police officers, he said: ‘Your duty requires you to overcome the resistance of the person you are arresting. If he resists, and it is a violent one, you are free to kill the idiots. That is my order to you.’