Headlines

Remark about leaving UN just a joke, Duterte says

Philstar.com

August 23, 2016 | 8:40pm

MANILA, Philippines -- He started a joke that started the whole world reacting.

President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday admitted that he was just joking when he threatened to leave the United Nations (UN) but maintained that the international agency should not meddle in the government's war on drugs.

“Di ka marunong mag-biro pa (Don’t you know how to joke)? Where will we join? The association of the sunken?” Duterte told reporters Tuesday when asked if he was serious about his threat to pull the Philippines out of the UN.

“They (UN) should behave the way they should behave,” he added.

Duterte insisted that the UN should not intervene in the affairs of the Philippines. He also lashed at UN special rapporteur on summary executions Agnes Callamard, who called on the administration to protect all persons from extrajudicial executions.

“Do not do that because you are addressing me as president and you’re pointing to the police structure. This is a government,” the tough-talking president said.

Duterte said Callamard should have asked guidance from her superiors.

“There has to be a superior who will write a letter. Or there should be respect before saying anything about genocide,” he said, adding that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon should have written the letter.

Callamard, whose statement was posted on the website of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, did not say anything about genocide.

On Sunday, Duterte said the Philippines should just bolt the UN after the international agency criticized the spate of killings that have been attributed to the administration’s anti-drug war.

The president said the UN keeps on picking on his war on drugs but has failed to stop unspecified killings in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

"Maybe we'll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations," he said in a press conference in Davao City.

"If you are that disrespectful... we should just leave," he added.

Duterte also claimed that the UN, which has provided aid to the Philippines during times of disasters, has done nothing for the country.

His officials later on clarified that the Philippines is not leaving the multilateral agency that the country helped found in 1945.

"We are committed to the UN despite our numerous frustrations with this international agency," Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said in a press conference in Pasay on Monday.

Yasay justified Duterte’s comments by saying that he was tired, disappointed and even hungry when he made the statement.

Duterte, nevertheless stands by his statements against critics of his brutal campaign against narcotics.

Asked to react to the US State Department’s concern about the human rights violations in the Philippines, Duterte replied: “Yes, of course, including us. The Philippine government is still worried about what is being done to the black people there in America, being shot even while lying down.”

“So I’m going to send my rapporteur also and investigate them,” he said in jest.

The president claimed that hatred is being spread against African Americans in the US.

“I also want my rapporteur to tell me what have you (US) done to the poor black people being set defenseless. Why only us?” he said.

The United Nations has actually criticized the US for incidents of police brutality in 2014.

"There are numerous areas in which certain things should be changed for the United States to comply fully with the convention,” Alessio Bruni, a member of the United Nations Committee Against Torture said after violence in Ferguson, Missouri that year.

The US, in 2015, took note of and supported recommendations that the UN made to improve its human rights record. The US said doing so was part of its commitment "to promote, protect, and respect human rights for all."