At his meeting with the Filipino community in Laos on Monday evening, Duterte said that Ramos had shown him the drug list way before he made a decision to run for presidency last May 9.
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The White House had earlier said Obama would not pull any punches on his concerns about human rights abuses in the Philippines, its treaty ally, when meeting Duterte. I am no American puppet.
El presidente de Filipinas, Rodrigo Duterte (centro), a su llegada al Centro Nacional de Convenciones para reuniones bilaterales con líderes de ASEAN durante una cumbre del grupo, el 6 de septiembre de 2016 en Vientiane, Laos. “We will end up disrespecting each other if you do that to me”.
In recent days, Mr. Duterte got irritated by USA officials, who kept on pressing him over human rights issue.
The White House canceled the meeting shortly after Duterte’s comments.
“We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me”, he added.
Responding to the jibe, President Obama responded diplomatically: “What I’ve instructed my team to do is to talk to their Philippine counterparts to find out, is this in fact a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations”.
Duterte said on Tuesday he regretted that his comments to media on Friday “came across as a personal attack” on Obama.
Duterte often hurls abusive insults at critics and is waging a brutal war on crime in which almost 3,000 people have been killed since he took office on June 30.
VIENTIANE, Laos-President Barack Obama on Tuesday recognized America’s secret war in Laos and the remnants that linger here decades later, a symbolic gesture meant to move relations between the two countries beyond their dark past.
But shortly after Duterte said the offenisve comments, Obama appeared to cast doubt on whether such a meeting could take place.
The acid-mouthed Duterte had vowed not to be lectured by Obama and warned him not to question his country’s extrajudicial killings during a regional summit meeting in Laos.
The policy has been criticized by the Catholic Church, human rights groups and the United Nations. The bombardment dropped more than 2 million tons of ordnance on the small nation, more than “we dropped on Germany and Japan, combined, in all of World War II”, Obama said. I had an argument with their gay ambassador, the son of a whore.
The 10-nation ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
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China sparked widespread alarm when it converted seven reefs in the Spratly Islands into islands that the United States says could be transformed into military bases to reinforce Beijing’s territorial claims and intimidate rival claimant countries. Many unemployed women took it up for a living.
