“If you are that insulting, son of a bitch, we should just leave”, Duterte said in a speech.
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More than 1,900 people have been killed in the anti-drugs campaign since Duterte, nicknamed “the Punisher”, came to office seven weeks ago, according to the police, and almost 700,000 drug users and drug peddlers have turned themselves in to escape the crackdown.
While asserting the he will opt for a peaceful resolution and not pick a fight with China, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte seems to have issued a veiled warning against any attempt to infringe on his country’s territory.
He is likely to hold talks with Beijing on the long-unsettled territorial dispute between the countries.
“We do not deny that there are some Chinese nationals who are involved in illegal drugs activities”, he said.
China demands that the Philippines shelve the arbitration ruling as a condition for bilateral talks, and whether the negotiations will unfold according to Duterte’s plan remains unclear. “I would walk the extra mile to ask for peace for everybody”.
His statements come just a month after an global court of arbitration in the Hague ruled that China’s “historic” claims to most of the South China Sea were invalid.
“I guarantee to (China), if you enter here, it will be bloody”, he said. “We promised them that if they committed drug-related crimes, please give us information, so that we can identify them”, Zhao said.
“It will be the bones of our soldiers, pati na ‘yung sa akin (as well as mine)”.
Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, initiated the arbitration case against China.
“(The ambassador) said that this is not true and I told him these reports are based on intelligence information, they have been validated so far as we are concerned, so I wanted a clarification from him”, Yasay said.
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Duterte himself complained that in the ongoing war, the government could not go after drug lords, pointing out that they ran their illegal networks while outside the Philippines or have already sought refuge overseas. This is his 15th visit to a military camp in little over a month.
