Dozens of sports cars and other luxury vehicles worth around £850,000 (Sh 120 million) were destroyed by bulldozers in the Philippines, as part of a drive to fight corruption at the countrys customs bureau.

Their destruction had been ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte, who was on hand to watch Jaguars, BMWs and a Corvette Stingray be crushed at a customs yard in the capital Manila.

The vehicles had been seized by the government after they were smuggled in from abroad, authorities said.

Expired

One of the cars destroyed, a blue 2000 Jaguar, had a British number plate. The vehicle had been registered as off the road, and its MOT expired in 2012.

It is likely to have been shipped to the Philippines.

President Duterte watched as the second-hand vehicles, some valued as high as £82,700 (Sh 12 Million) were reduced to piles of scrap in a little over three minutes.

Toys

'Give it to the buyer of steel,' Duterte said, recalling his instruction to officials.

'They cannot have cars like that. But they can get something, make toys out of it.'

Corruption

'It does not pay to evade taxes in the Philippines so might as well stop trying, because you will never succeed,' Duterte's finance minister, Carlos Dominguez, told reporters before letting diggers loose on 20 slick-looking vehicles at a Manila port.

A further ten were simultaneously destroyed in ports in the southern cities of Davao and Cebu, with all vehicles scrapped reportedly worth a combined 61.6 million pesos.

The president has made fighting corruption and illegal drugs the cornerstones of his six-year term.

Scrap

'Reduce them to scrap metal,' Duterte said in a speech to customs employees after the event.

Normally, seized smuggled vehicles are impounded and then auctioned with the government taking the proceeds.

'I will pay for them, no problem,' Duterte said.