He has only been president for a matter of months, yet Duterte’s presidency is marred with inappropriate comments and extrajudicial killings as he wages war against criminals and drug dealers.
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The Filipino leader is known for his colourful language, though this time it has had a diplomatic impact, the BBC reports.
Duterte is also planning to ask China’s premier at the Vientiane meetings whether China is trying to develop a disputed reef, Scarborough Shoal, off the Philippines’ northwestern coast, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said.
On Tuesday, Duterte expressed regret over the remarks, but the damage was already done.
Obama is the first sitting US president to visit the Southeast Asian country.
While Price’s statement didn’t give a reason for the scheduling change, Duterte on Monday rejected USA criticism of the methods he’s using in his anti-drug campaign, saying it was an internal Philippine matter.
The acid-tongued former prosecutor on Monday warned he would not be lectured by Obama over concerns about a brutal war on crime that has claimed more than 2,400 lives in the Philippines.
In his typical loose-tongued style, Duterte said: “I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody”.
Obama, who is in Laos for meetings with South Asian leaders, will instead meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Do not just throw away questions and statements. “Putang ina, I will swear at you in that forum”, he said, using the Tagalog phrase for “son of a bitch”.
Laos President Bounnhang Vorachith (L) and US President Barack Obama (R) toast during an official lunch at the Presidential Palace in Vientiane on September 6, 2016.
Millions of unexploded cluster bombs remain in the Laotian countryside from a nine-year USA covert bombing campaign that was aimed at cutting off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam.
Making the first visit for a sitting USA president, Mr. Obama said too few Americans know of the United States’ covert bombing of Laos during the Vietnam War.
In the meantime, he said the purge would continue: ‘More people will be killed, plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets, ‘ he said.
As a first sign of a new relationship with Laos, Mr. Obama said his administration would address the legacy of war.
“The United States is more deeply engaged across the Asia-Pacific than we have been in decades”, he said.
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He said he looks forward to fixing the differences “arising out of national priorities and perceptions, and working in mutually responsible ways for both countries”.
