Philippine Trumpieby digby
President Trump told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in his initial phone call that he thought he’d handled the drug war “the right way” (by killing everyone in sight.)Duterte obviously thinks Trump is fantastic too. He’s taking Trumpism international:
President Duterte said he has been “demonized” by “fake news” about the alleged extrajudicial killings linked to his war on illegal drugs.
The President accused his political opponents of spreading such false information about the suspected drug-related killings, insisting he has never ordered any policeman to kill people.
“I have been demonized. And well, of course, I will assure you upon my oath as a lawyer and before God that some are true, some are not. And the extrajudicial tag that has been placed on me is simply not true,” Duterte said during a gathering of ASEAN Law Association Governing Council in Malacañang.
“According to the bright guys of this country, the political opposition, the guys who cannot accept defeat, they invented the fake news and concocted figures,” he added.
Duterte explained that he merely authorized policemen to shoot drug suspects if they violently resist arrest. “I do not deny that there were people killed in that campaign. But what they say is, why are they here? Because a shabu user or a lieutenant of the shabu syndicate has always a gun,” he said.
Duterte said he did not order the cops to murder people who willingly surrender to authorities.
“I did not tell any policeman, for the life of me, to kill just everybody perhaps sitting down or kneeling in front of the police with his hands outstretched in surrender. That is really murder,” he said.
“I have always stressed that the only time that you can kill a criminal is when your life is also in danger, or you’re about — self-preservation,” he said.
The President challenged his critics to file a case against him before the international criminal court, saying there was “no problem” about it.
Duterte defended that he is merely enforcing the law amid the intensified campaign against illegal drugs. He however, saw nothing wrong with his oft-repeated threat to kill those who would destroy the nation through the illegal drug trade.