MANILA—President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday issued a threat to so-called “ninja cops” — or policemen involved in the sale of illegal drugs.

Duterte tore into officers who think that they are “lords of the country” whenever they get away with crime.

“But there are some people, like policemen, you have to beg then they arrest. At it again, and they sell drugs and they go scot-free and they think that they are the lords of this country,” he said before a group of Chinese businessmen in Parañaque City.

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, everybody dies in this world but you will go ahead first. Remember that.”

The President made the statement after police official-turned-Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong told lawmakers that a "high-ranking" police official was allegedly protecting subordinates engaged in illegal-narcotics activities.

Magalong, a former chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, accused several Pampanga policemen of recycling drugs in 2007, when Philippine National Police head Oscar Albayalde was the provincial chief at the time.

Duterte has punished a number of erring policemen, sending some of them to far-flung towns. He has also raised bounties on policemen involved in the illegal-drugs trade.