'Asia's Trump' Says He'll Kill Criminals, Pardon Himself

Filipino presidential front-runner Rodrigo Duterte focused on two things in a speech this week: his plan to end crime by killing tens of thousands of criminals, and his penis. The Davao City mayor, who has been nicknamed "Asia's Donald Trump," promised business leaders that his presidency "will be a bloody one" and that he will "issue 1,000 pardons a day" if police or soldiers are accused of human rights abuses, AFP reports. He said at the end of his term, he will grant a final pardon to himself. "Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for the crime of multiple [murders], signed Rodrigo Duterte," he said as the audience laughed. Reuters notes that the mayor has already been linked to vigilante death squads blamed for 1,700 killings in Davao City, which is around the same size as Phoenix.

The 71-year-old also joked about his womanizing. "I'm not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever?" he said. "When I take Viagra, it stands up." A Milken Institute analyst tells CNBC that Duterte's approach to politics is much like Trump's, with similar results. "Duterte and Trump have attracted and repelled potential voters with straight talk and rhetoric that has bordered on, if not been, outright offensive," he says. Polls put Duterte, whose other nicknames include "Duterte Harry" and "The Punisher," up to 12 points ahead of his nearest rival, Grace Poe, ahead of the May 9 election. (His popularity increased after he joked about wanting to rape a murdered Australian missionary earlier this month.)