Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed “regret” for his comments at a press conference, in which he called President Obama a “son of a bitch” or “son of a whore” (depending on how you translate the Tagalog) and threatened to swear at him in a planned bilateral meeting.
The White House canceled the meeting shortly after Duterte’s comments.
“We … regret [the remarks] came across as a personal attack on the U.S. president,” Duterte’s office said in a statement issued Tuesday.
Duterte may have expressed regret after cursing US President Barack Obama but dust has far from settled on the controversy that he kicked off with his obsenity-laden rant.
The rant against Obama prompted the White House to cancel planned bilateral talks between the two leaders in Laos this week even though in a statement through his spokesman he regretted the rant and pointed out what triggered it.
“President Duterte explained that the press reports that the (U.S.) President (Barack) Obama would “lecture” him on extrajudicial killings led to his strong comments, which in turn elicited concern. He regrets that his remarks to the press have caused much controversy.”
Phillipines and US are at loggergeads over the issue of Philipines’ handling of drug dealers, including extrajudicial killings, which are government executions without the benefit of judicial proceedings.
It’s being said that Duterte’s statement was aimed at avoiding a meeting with Obama in order to evade questions on the extrajudicial killings.
Rodrigo had earlier trained his guns on American envoy in Philipines Philip Goldburg.
Rodrigo became Philippines President on 30th June this year and as soon as he assumed power he declared that his govt would execute 1 lakh drug dealers in 6 months.
Eyebrows have been raised on the executions of 2400 drug dealers so far.