Yasay called a briefing to clarify the statement made by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday that the Philippines will “separate” from the United Nations after the body criticized his war on illicit drugs.
Advertisement
“We certainly are not leaving the UN”, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr said in a news conference on Monday. “If you are that disrespectful, son of a whore, then I will just leave you”, Duterte said in a press conference in his home city of Davao that started about 1 am on Sunday.
She also said the panel will also hear the reports of concerned government agencies on the spate of killings and the position papers of resource persons invited to attend the hearing.
He said Duterte’s statement on Sunday was a mere “statement expressing profound disappointments and frustrations and it is not any statement that should indicate a threat to leave the United Nations”.
Since winning the election, AI noted, Mr. Duterte has “triggered widespread alarm” by calling for the restoration of the death penalty, vowing to preside over a wave of extrajudicial executions, threatening journalists and intimidating human rights defenders. On Wednesday last week he said if an investigator came to the Philippines, “I’d like to box him in the head”. So take us out of your organization. ‘I tell them to arrest these criminals if they surrender peacefully, but kill them if they put up a violent struggle.
The country’s top police officer, Philippines National Police (PNP) chief Ronald Dela Rosa reported in testimony that 712 suspects have been killed in police operations since the war on drugs began, and that internal police investigations in these cases are ongoing.
Since taking office, Duterte has used extreme methods [CNN report] to dispose of anyone connected to the nations illegal drug trade.
Duterte described the U.N.as inutile, and lashed out at USA police killings of black men.
However, Mr Duterte’s foreign minister Perfecto Yasay today said the Philippines would remain a United Nations member and described the President’s comments as expressions of “profound disappointment and frustration”. “Anybody in that stupid body complaining about the stench there of death?”
“Why are you Americans killing the black people there, shooting them down when they are already on the ground?” he asked.
“Again I would not want to touch on that”, she said.
Advertisement
Duterte said he would sign on Monday an executive order for the mass dismissal as a major component of his commitment to stamp out graft and corruption in the bureaucracy and pursue the ongoing intensified campaign against rampant criminality especially illegal drugs.
