Responding to question about how he meant to explain the extrajudicial killings to the US President, before boarding a plane to Laos for the Association of South-east Asian Nations summit (ASEAN), he said, “You must be respectful”.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte expressed regret on Tuesday for his unbridled attack on United States president Barack Obama in which he called the U.S. leader a “son of a w****”.
“I am leaving for Vientiane, Laos to join other ASEAN leaders at the 28th and 29th Summits and Related Summits”, the President said in his departure speech at Davao International Airport September 5. Obama went on to the Lao capital for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
“You must be respectful”, Mr Duterte said of Mr Obama.
President Barack Obama canceled what would have been his first meeting with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, after Duterte described Obama in vulgar terms, a White House spokesman said. The nations agreed to move the meeting to a later date, he added.
Using the Tagalog phrase for “son of a whore”, he said: “Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum”.
The war on drugs will continue and many will be killed “until the last pusher is out of business”, he said.
Obama learned about the insult as he emerged from the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China.
During the Abe-Duterte meeting, Philippines Presidential Adviser on Peace Process, Jesus Dureza, said that the two leaders shared strategies on dealing with territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Kyodo News reported.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reaffirmed the “long and close” bilateral ties in their first such bilateral meeting since the latter took office in late June this year. He’s visited the country twice in his second term, and announced on a stop there in November the return of a USA military presence at a critical naval base on the South China Sea.
Obama is the first sitting USA president to set foot in the impoverished, landlocked country.
Duterte said last week that the Philippine coast guard has sighted Chinese barges at Scarborough, which he said could presage the transformation of the Chinese-held reef into another man-made island. But Chinese activity that could be the precursor to a land-reclamation project at the Scarborough Shoal just 230 km west of the Philippines could prompt a rethink of Duterte’s strategy. “He expresses deep regret, regards and affinity for Obama and the US’ diplomatic partnership with our nation”.
“The United States is helping Laos clear unexploded ordnance, which poses a threat to people and hampers economic development”, it said.
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He has also taken on a more conciliatory position with US rival China.
