Duterte says he’s not angry with US, UN after his harsh words

After calling US President Barack Obama a “son of bitch,” scrapping annual war games and threatening to sever relations with Washington, President Duterte insisted on Sunday that he was not angry with the United States.

He had also called UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union “fools,” but he said he was not angry with them, either. Too ‘dumb’

If he had cursed them, he said, it was because they were too “dumb” to see his war on drugs from his point of view.

“I’m not angry at them. What I am trying to say—I am ‘totally exasperated’ is the word—[is] that they do not know our laws, that it is not a crime even for a civilian Filipino walking in the streets to say I hate the criminals, I hope they die, I will kill them if I catch them. That statement is in defense of my country and people,” Mr. Duterte said in a speech to the Filipino community in Brunei, where he was making an official visit. Obama canceled a meeting with Mr. Duterte last month, Ban and the European Union raised concern over the killing of more than 3,000 people in the war on drugs in the Philippines and last week the International Criminal Court (ICC) signaled that Mr. Duterte could face prosecution for incitements to kill.

But Mr. Duterte refused to dial down his rhetoric, saying he would talk tough “until the last drug pusher is stopped, until the last drug lord is ‘KKKKKKK.’”

Mr. Duterte said he found it absurd that his critics continued to threaten him with prosecution in the ICC over alleged extrajudicial killings in his brutal war on drugs. “How can you send to prison a President declaring war on the drug? I already said I am willing to rot in jail for the Filipino. Don’t you understand that? So why keep on threatening or intimidating me and calling my attention? You’re too corny,” he said. Even so, Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque cautioned Mr. Duterte about his language.

Source: Inquirer

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