PHILIPPINES police resumed a “less bloody” crackdown on drugs yesterday.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed during his election campaign to pardon himself at the end of his term for “multiple murders,” had twice paused the anti-drugs programme — in which officers visit the homes of suspected dealers and encourage them to reform — because of reported abuses by the police.

But he has restarted the visits, supposedly the friendlier prong in his anti-drugs programme, because the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency was not big enough to do the job.