Duterte to Canada: Take trash back or else I’ll declare war

Updated @ 11:49 p.m., April 23, 2019, to add more quotes

SAN FERNANDO CITY, Pampanga — President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday threatened war against Canada if it does not take out its trash from the Philippines, which was sent to the country six years ago, by next week.

“I want a boat prepared. I’ll give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that thing out or I will set sail, doon sa Canada, ibuhos ko ‘yang basura nila doon,” the President said in a situation briefing at the provincial capitol here after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit parts of Luzon.

“I cannot understand why they are making us a dumpsite, and that is not the only case on point. Papasunod-sunod ‘yan na pinapadala ‘yung basura sa atin. Well, not this time,” he added.

The President warned he would declare war against Canada if it would not take its trash back.

“Awayin natin ang Canada. I will declare war against them. Kaya man natin ‘yan sila. Isauli ko talaga ‘yan. Ah, tingnan mo. Ikarga mo ‘yan doon sa ano sa barko, load it — the containers to a ship and advice Cana — and I will advise Canada that your garbage is on the way. Prepare a grand reception. Eat it if you want to,”he said.

[Let’s quarrel with Canada. I will declare war against them. We can face them. I’ll really return that trash. Just wait. Load that up on a ship and I will advise Canada that your garbage is on the way. Prepare a grand reception. Eat it if you want to.]

“Buang (Fool) itong kinakaya-kaya tayo. Hindi ako papayag ng ganun,” he added.

[What a fool, bullying us. I won’t allow that.]

The President said Canada should “prepare” and “celebrate because your garbage is coming home.”

He said some of the container vans with garbage should be poured into the Canadian Embassy in Makati.

“Yung iba mga limang truck ibuhos mo diyan sa Canadian Embassy,” he said.

Between 2013 to 2014, the Bureau of Customs intercepted a total of 103 containers of mixed garbage from Canada declared as “recyclable scrap plastics.”

In his visit to the Philippines during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit in Manila in November 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commited to President Duterte that his government was finding a solution to address the garbage issue.

Trudeau said then that the Canadian government had to deal with legal barriers and restrictions that prevented it from taking back the trash, stranded in Manila and in Subic.

He assured the Philippine government then that Canada was “of course very open to working with the government of the Philippines to resolve this question.”

/je /atm