REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MANILA -- Police killed at least 13 people in Manila on the third night of an escalation in President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war on drugs and crime, taking the toll for one of the bloodiest weeks so far to 80, Reuters witnesses and media reported on Friday.
Earlier this week, 67 people were gunned down and more than 200 arrested in Manila and provinces adjoining the Philippines capital, in what police described as a "One-Time, Big-Time" push to curb drugs and street crimes.
The term has been used by Philippines police to describe a coordinated anti-crime drive in crime-prone districts, usually slums or low income neighbourhoods, often with additional police deployed.
The spike in killings drew condemnation from Vice President Leni Robredo, who belongs to a party opposed to Duterte.
A team of Reuters journalists went to five communities in Manila on Thursday night, where four men died in shootouts with undercover police in drug 'buy-bust' or sting operations.
Police prevented the journalists from getting near the scene in the northwestern neighbourhood of Caloocan but they saw three body bags being taken from a maze of narrow alleys. Elsewhere in Caloocan, they saw the corpse of a man slumped on an iron fence at the back of a mini-bus terminal.
Another man was killed near the Manila post office building, four died in hospitals in the northern area of Malabon and another died on the spot near a former garbage dump in the sprawling Quezon City district.
Three others were killed elsewhere on Thursday night, according to a radio report, including a man who was shot by masked men on a motorcycle in the eastern area of Marikina City.
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