Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday said that US president-elect Donald Trump had endorsed his anti-drug campaign, telling Duterte that the Philippines was conducting it “the right way.”
Duterte, who spoke with Trump by telephone on Friday, said he was “quite sensitive” to “our worry about drugs.”
“He wishes me well, too, in my campaign, and he said that, well, we are doing it as a sovereign nation, the right way,” Duterte said.
Since Duterte took office in June, more than 2,000 people have been killed by the police in what officers describe as drug raids, and the police say several hundred more have been killed by vigilantes.
The program has been condemned by the US, the UN, the EU and others for what rights organizations have characterized as extrajudicial killings.
In rejecting such criticism from the US this fall, Duterte called US President Barack Obama a “son of a whore.”
In a summary of the phone call with Trump released by Duterte’s office yesterday morning, Duterte said the two had spoken for just a few minutes, but covered many topics, including the anti-drug campaign.
“I could sense a good rapport, an animated president-elect Trump,” Duterte said. “And he was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem.”
Duterte added: “He understood the way we are handling it, and I said that there’s nothing wrong in protecting a country. It was a bit very encouraging in the sense that I supposed that what he really wanted to say was that we would be the last to interfere in the affairs of your own country.”
Duterte, who has said he was seeking “a separation” from the US, a longtime ally, and has threatened to bar US troops from his country, also said: “We assured him of our ties with America.”
He did not elaborate on that comment.
Duterte also said that Trump had invited him to visit New York and Washington, and that Trump said he wanted to attend the summit meeting of the ASEAN next year in the Philippines.
“I appreciate the response that I got from president-elect Trump, and I would like to wish him success,” Duterte said. “He will be a good president for the United States of America.”
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