Bangkok: When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was running for election, he vowed that under his rule fish in Manila Bay would grow fat from the bodies of drugs users and addicts.
Many observers saw his remarks as shock tactics from a foul-mouthed former provincial mayor who revels in making outlandish statements, such as declaring recently he could be 50 times more brutal than any Islamist extremist who staged beheadings.
"Give me salt and vinegar and I'll eat his liver," he said.
But 12 months after taking office, fishermen say they have been dumping bodies of dozens of drugs suspects in Manila Bay on the orders of police, who human rights groups accuse of carrying out thousands of extra-judicial killings.
"Police are the ones coming to my house ordering me to take out the trash," said Manuel, a fisherman, referring to bodies found on the side of highways.
"We usually throw them in Manila Bay sometimes we put weights on them so they don't float up," Manuel told al-Jazeera's correspondent in Manila.
He said he had personally disposed of 20 bodies.
Mr Duterte pledged earlier this month that his so-called "war on drugs" would continue relentlessly, saying drugs dealers face "either jail or hell".
"Illegal drugs are the root cause of much evil and so much suffering that weaken the social fabric and deters foreign investment from pouring in," he said.
According to human rights groups, Philippine security forces and "unidentified gunmen" have killed almost 8000 Filipino drugs suspects, the largest number of civilian deaths in South-east Asia since the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s.
But police are no longer releasing the body count after international condemnation of the killings, including from the United Nations, which Mr Duterte has blocked from carrying out an independent investigation.
Rights investigators and media outlets, including Fairfax Media, have detailed dozens of cases where mostly poor Filipinos have been dragged from their homes and executed.
Mr Duterte shrugs off the criticisms, describing critics as "crazies", as his popularity remains high in a country with one of the highest rates of drugs use in Asia.
In one of his most controversial statements he said "if you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be painful".
Philippine police and the country's drug enforcement agency claim the crackdown is working, with more than 1.3 million drug suspects surrendering and tonnes of drugs seized.
