Rodrigo Duterte, 71, has a comfortable lead over the other candidates in the south-east Asian country’s looming election in May.

The media has struggled to explain his unstoppable rise in the polls despite a series of controversies surrounding vile remarks about women, including jokes about rape and his mistresses.

Mr Duterte has proposed to give security forces a “license to kill” in a bid to crack down on soaring crime rates that have terrorised his mostly middle class and wealthy voters.

In a speech to the Makati Business Club, he promised that his presidency “will be a bloody one”.

He said he would “issue 1,000 pardons a day” in order to exonerate soldiers or police officers accused of rights abuses.

And he was cheered loudest after pointing out that the constitution allowed the president to pardon himself for crimes and announcing that he would do so at the end of his six-year term.

He told the crowd: “Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for the crime of multiple murder, signed Rodrigo Duterte.”