Duterte, who admitted Thursday he can not behave in the way expected of a Philippine president as he is used to being a local executive, which he was for more than two decades, lashed out again at the United Nations, the European Union and the United States for their criticism leveled him.
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Members of the European Parliament expressed concern over the “extraordinarily high numbers killed” during Duterte’s notorious anti-crime and anti-drug campaign.
Rodrigo Duterte was elected in May on the promise of preventing the Philippines becoming a “narco-state”, by vowing to kill those involved in the import or selling of illegal drugs.
Rights groups have heavily criticized Duterte’s regime for human rights violations in relation to the president’s “war on drugs”.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, issued a statement to be read in churches earlier.
“Then all of you can watch how I trample on them”, he added. “I repeat it, fuck you”, he said.
Teodoro Locsin Jr., the country’s next permanent representative to the United Nations, on Wednesday told the European Union to fix its own problems before meddling with domestic issues.
Mr Duterte has rejected the criticism, calling US President Barack Obama a “son of a whore” and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon a “fool”, and vowing to continue his campaign – which is proving hugely popular domestically and boosting his poll ratings. “I will tell them, fuck you”, said potty-mouth Duterte at the Sulong Pilipinas-Local Governance Dialogues at SMX Convention Center in Davao City.
Duterte’s defiant stand against the European Union comes two just days after he asked for more time to finish the deadly war on drugs.
This outburst was shortly followed by Duterte ordering U.S. troops to leave the south of his country, after blaming them for inflaming tensions with the local Muslim population.
The outspoken leader’s comments follow a resolution from the European Parliament last week which urged him to stop “the current wave of extrajudicial executions and killings”. “I will ask them one by one in an open forum”, Duterte said.
More than 700,000 drug suspects have also surrendered, the police said.
More than 3500 people have been slaughtered by police and vigilante squads since Duterte took office less than three months ago.
“He is a bigot and I am not”, the president said.
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President Duterte finally broke his silence last night and said self-confessed “executioner” Edgar Matobato’s testimony before the Senate last week was nothing but a lie.
