Duterte says he’s ‘not a fan’ of US – ‘Indonesia can chase pirates into Philippines waters’

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DAVAO, Philippines, Sept 10, (Agencies): Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, saying he was “not a fan” of the United States, vowed Saturday to steer an independent course for the key Asian ally and refrain from confronting territorial rival China.

The incendiary leader made the comments after a controversial first foreign trip and spectacular falling out with US President Barack Obama, who he called a “son of a whore”. “I am not a fan of the Americans… Filipinos should be first before everybody else,” Duterte told reporters upon arrival in his hometown of Davao city Saturday. “In our relations to the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy. I repeat: The Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy.”

The president’s trip to a summit in Laos was overshadowed by his verbal tirade, which saw Obama cancel a planned meeting. The pair met briefly later after Duterte expressed regret. The US, Manila’s main military ally and the Philippines’ colonial ruler until 1946, has criticised Duterte’s brutal crackdown on crime, which has claimed 3,000 lives since he took office in July and drawn condemnation from the United Nations. Obama has urged the Filipino leader to conduct his crime war “the right way” and protect human rights, but Duterte has dismissed it as being none of America’s business.

Strategic
The two also subtly differed on how to proceed after a UN-backed international tribunal in July outlawed most of China’s claims to the strategic South China Sea, including areas that overlap with those of the Philippines and other neighbours. Obama, whose government wants to ensure freedom of navigation in the waterway, brought up the contentious issue at the Laos forum also attended by China. He stressed that the tribunal’s ruling was “binding” and could not be ignored by Beijing, which has rejected it.

Duterte favours a “soft landing” for the issue and said Saturday it would be counter-productive for his militarily weak nation, which hosts small units of US forces, to confront China or undertake actions that could lead to armed conflict. “I assured everybody that there are only two options there: We go to fight, which we cannot afford at all, or talk,” he added.

On Friday during an overnight visit to Indonesia, Duterte announced China had pledged to help build drug rehabilitation centres to treat Filipino crystal meth users. Law enforcement officials believe criminal gangs in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong supply most of the illegal and highly addictive stimulants to the Philippines. “Only China has offered to help us,” Duterte said Friday, according to an official transcript of a speech he gave to the Filipino community in Jakarta. Duterte gave Indonesian forces the right to pursue pirates into Philippine waters, saying piracy is one of the main problems between the two countries.

Piracy
Duterte, who is visiting Jakarta, discussed piracy and other security issues on Friday with Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. He said he was sorry that even shipments of coal from Indonesia destined for Philippine power plants are being affected by piracy. If Indonesian forces are chasing pirates and they enter Philippine waters, “they can go ahead and blast them off,” Duterte said. “That’s my word actually with Widodo. I said, ‘blow them up.’” He added, “But maybe if there are sharks around, then we can just feed them to the sharks.” Nine Indonesians are among 16 foreign hostages currently being held by the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, where Muslim separatist rebellions have raged for decades.

In May, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed to carry out coordinated patrols following a series of kidnappings and piracy attacks that undermined commerce in the Celebes Sea, where their sea borders overlap. Duterte took a thinly veiled dig at the United States on Thursday, complaining that colonizers who killed many Filipinos are now raising human rights concerns with him. Obama was among several world leaders who listened to Duterte’s brief speech at the East Asia Summit in the Laotian capital of Vientiane. Obama earlier canceled a meeting with Duterte.

Two Philippine Cabinet officials said Duterte did not criticize any country or leader by name in his speech. Other diplomats who heard the speech, however, felt he was referring to the United States, which colonized the Philippines after defeating its former ruler, Spain. An Indonesian diplomat said Duterte held up a picture of Filipinos killed in colonial times to underscore his point. The diplomat spoke to reporters on condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. Philippine officials refused to release Duterte’s remarks, which were not included in his prepared speech.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said the president provided an explanation of how human rights records should be assessed in the context of the historical record. “In the passionate intervention of President Duterte, he underscored the need to take a long historical view of human rights, mindful of the atrocities against the ethnic people of Mindanao,” the department said in a statement, referring to the southern Philippine region where American forces were involved in deadly clashes with Muslim Filipinos in the early 1900s. Duterte, who assumed the presidency in June, has had an uneasy relationship with the US, his country’s longtime treaty ally.

He has said he is charting a foreign policy that is not dependent on the US, and has moved to reduce tensions with China over rival territorial claims. The tough-talking president has also blasted UN-appointed human rights experts and rights watchdogs who have expressed concerns over the extrajudicial killings of more than 2,800 suspected drug dealers and users since Duterte took office. More than 600,000 others have surrendered, apparently out of fear of being killed.

After the flap over Duterte’s earlier remarks, he and Obama met briefly on the sidelines of the Laos meetings and shook hands. One Cabinet member, Jesus Dureza, said he asked Duterte how his talk with Obama went. “It was OK,” Dureza quoted Duterte as saying. “He told me, ‘we can talk some more at another time.’” The summit ended with Laos turning over the chairmanship of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations to Duterte, whose country will host the annual diplomatic gathering next year.

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