Tue, Mar 21, 2017 page5

• Duterte calls his critics ‘crazies’

  • AFP, NAYPYIDAW
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  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has described European lawmakers as “crazies” in a salty-tongued rebuttal to criticism of his deadly drug war, while vowing again that all traffickers will be killed.

  Duterte fired his broadside in a late-night speech on Sunday in Myanmar after the European Parliament issued a resolution last week condemning “the high number of extrajudicial killings” in his drug war.

  “I don’t get these crazies. Why are you trying to impose on us? Why don’t you mind your own business/” said Duterte, who frequently uses swear words and other abusive language against his critics.

  “Why do you have to fuck with us, God damn it,” he added.

  Duterte, who took office in the middle of last year, has overseen a ruthless campaign ostensibly to eradicate illegal drugs that he says are threatening to turn the Philippines into a narco-state.

  Police have reported killing more than 2,500 people, while rights groups say there have been more than 5,000 other deaths linked to the drug war.

  Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said that Duterte might be overseeing crimes against humanity, with police allegedly running anonymous death squads.

  Duterte has insisted he has not asked his security forces to break the law, although on other occasions he has called for millions of drug addicts to be killed and vowed to pardon police officers found guilty of murder.

  At the speech to a gathering of the Filipino community in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, Duterte said that many more people would be killed in his drugs crackdown.

  “More people will die. I said I will not stop. I will continue until the last drug lord in the Philippines is killed and the pushers [are] out of the streets,” he said.

  Reacting to criticism that the operation targeted the poor, Duterte said he must “destroy” small-time street peddlers as well as the big-time drug lords.

  In its resolution, European lawmakers also called for the UN Human Rights Council to launch a probe into Duterte’s drug war, and expressed “deep alarm” at Duterte’s plans to bring back the death penalty.

  Duterte insisted foreign critics did not understand the Philippines.

  To illustrate his theory on the clash of cultures, Duterte referred to a recent Time magazine cover article on gender and sexuality, and compared it with what he insisted was blanket Filipino opposition to same-sex marriage.

  “That’s their culture. It does not apply to us. We are Catholics and there is the civil code which says that you can only marry a woman for me [and] for a woman to marry a man,” he said. “You stay where God assigned you. Do not mix us all up.”

  In related news, Philippine House of Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, a staunch ally of Duterte, yesterday said he was studying whether there was cause to impeach Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo for her criticism of Duterte’s drug war.

  Duterte himself is facing an impeachment motion, with Philippine Representative Gary Alejano accusing Duterte of offenses ranging from conflict of interest and assets concealment to drugs-related extrajudicial killings and operating a “death squad” during the 22 years he was Davao City mayor.

  Alvarez said in a radio interview he was weighing the possibility of filing an impeachment case against Robredo for “betrayal of public trust.”

  Additional reporting by Reuters
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