A longtime critic of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has been ousted as the head of a committee investigating hundreds of extrajudicial killings during Duterte’s ongoing war on drugs.
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Duterte, whose bloody campaign on drugs has drawn the ire of global communities, on Tuesday used the “F” word not once but twice when commenting on the European body expressing concerns over his government’s hardline stance.
Duterte has always been accused of either sanctioning or tolerating the vigilante-style killings of alleged criminals, from the time he was mayor of Davao City on the southern island of Mindanao, because of his pronouncements suggesting that.
Duterte’s reaction against the union came less than a week after the European Parliament condemned the Philippine leader for the “extraordinarily high numbers [of people] killed during police operations in the context of an intensified anti-crime and anti-drug campaign”.
“Now the European Union has the gall to condemn me”. I tell them, [expletive] you.
After the European Parliament called for an end to the drug killings and expressed concern over the scale of deaths, Duterte hit back earlier this week with a profane insult and raised a fist with his middle finger thrust out.
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.
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte revealed Thursday that he would go to China “more often” to talk to the Chinese government on the West Philippine Sea disputes.
Duterte’s war on drugs, the key plank of a poll campaign likened to that of US presidential candidate Donald Trump, has claimed more than 3,800 lives from July 1 to September 18. “I repeat it, fuck you”, he said.
Soon after his election as president, Duterte urged citizens with guns to join the war agains drug dealers by killing them. Criminals. You call that genocide?
“I’ll write them a letter to invite them for an investigation but in keeping with the time-honoured principle of the right to be heard”.
This outburst was shortly followed by Duterte ordering USA troops to leave the south of his country, after blaming them for inflaming tensions with the local Muslim population. “We admit we make mistakes, we are not flawless”, he said.
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Last week, a former death squad member made allegations to the committee, including that Duterte used an uzi submachine gun to kill a member of the Justice Department when the President was still mayor of Davao City.
