A Filipino man has died after police forced him to do more than 300 squat-like exercises as punishment for breaching lockdown rules.
Darren Manaog Penaredondo was stopped by police for buying water after the 6pm curfew last Thursday.
As punishment, Mr Peñaredondo was forced to do a hundred squats in sync with several others. If they could not do so simultaneously, they would have to begin again.
He ended up being forced to do 300 squats.
“He went home on Friday at 8am in the morning and he couldn’t walk properly,” his brother Adrian Lucena wrote on Facebook.
“After Saturday morning he had a convulsion.”
Mr Peñaredondo died at 10pm on Saturday.
“Brother goodbye, we love you so much,” Mr Lucena wrote.
Mayor of General Trias City Ony Ferrer lamented Mr Peñaredondo’s death.
“The Government of the City of General Trias values the implemented health standards to prevent the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in our community,” he said in a statement.
“Hurting or torturing anyone who violates it is not part of our policy.”
Mr Ferrer “immediately ordered” the police chief to conduct an investigation about the arrest and the apparent “torturing”.
The Philippines has introduced strict curfews and other lockdown laws in a bid to control the pandemic.
But Human Rights Watch has said the police actions against curfew violators has been “cruel, inhuman and degrading”.
In one baffling instance, police in Laguna province crowded five youths into a small dog cage together as punishment for breaching curfew.
Others in Paranaque were forced to sit in the hot midday sun.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, long an advocate of extrajudicial police punishment, issued a warning against breaches of lockdown rules.
“I will not hesitate,” he said in a televised address.
“My orders are to the police and military, as well as village officials, if there is any trouble, or occasions where there’s violence and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead.”
An alarming spike in coronavirus infections in the Philippines has overwhelmed hospitals.
In response, the Philippines has extended lockdowns.
This content first appear on 9news