US President Barack Obama cancelled his first meeting with Philippines counterpart Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday after the blunt-spoken Duterte described him as a “son of a bitch”, casting a shadow over a gathering of Asian leaders in Laos.
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Referring to the Duterte-Obama meeting, Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella added, “In a meeting like this, there is always an opportunity for warmth and civility”.
Duterte made the intemperate remarks Monday before flying to Laos.
“China wouldn’t provide a red carpet stairway from Air Force One and then Philippines President calls Obama ‘the son of a whore.’ awful!” At a news conference, he said he had told his aides to speak with Philippine officials “to find out is this, in fact, a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations”, leaving little doubt that the meeting would not proceed as planned. Over nine years, over 2 million tons of ordnance was dropped on the country – more than “we dropped on Germany and Japan, combined, in all of World War II”, Obama said.
“The areas that we believe we have robust, strong cooperation with them, we are not going to just simply throw that aside”. “‘Putang ina” mo murahin kita diyan sa forum na “yan [son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum]”.
“Time will tell whether President Duterte steps back from this episode and realises he needs to recalibrate his choice of words in engaging United States leaders”, said Amy Searight, a former senior Pentagon official now at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
Barring a sharp U-turn by Duterte, their sit-down appeared increasingly unlikely to happen as Obama flew overnight from Laos.
Obama showed that he would not be intimidated by Duterte, saying he would “undoubtedly” still bring up human rights and due process concerns “if and when” the two do meet.
Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 summit in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, Obama said Washington recognised that drugs were a significant problem for the Philippines.
Duterte is scrambling to smooth things over with the US, a longtime ally.
Obama also spent about 90 minutes Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, another leader whose fate seems intertwined with Obama’s in all the wrong ways. And it’s something that only someone like Duterte can say. “But typically the tone of our meetings is candid, blunt, businesslike”.
It also soured Obama’s last tour as president through a region he has tried to make a focus of USA foreign policy, a strategy widely seen as a response to China’s economic and military muscle-flexing.
Diplomats say strains with longtime ally the Philippines could compound Washington’s difficulties in forging a united front with Southeast Asian partners on the geostrategic jostle with Beijing over the South China Sea.
Duterte expanded the scope of his proclamation earlier declaring a “state of lawlessness” to an indefinite “state of national emergency on account of lawless violence” nationwide based on the latest document released by Malacanang Palace.
He has previously used the epithet against Pope Francis, although he later apologized, and the USA ambassador to the Philippines.
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Duterte, who campaigned for the Philippine presidency on promises to end illegal drug activity in his homeland, has alarmed an array of human rights organizations with his deadly crackdown.
