Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC
President Rodrigo Duterte is not a fan of Adolf Hitler and he is not a mass murderer, as his local critics and the rest of the world want to picture him.
Mr. Duterte on Friday drew parallels with the Nazi mass murder of Jews and his brutal war on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 people dead and raised concerns about the rule of law crumbling in the Philippines.
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Facing a fierce international backlash yesterday, Malacañang said that Mr. Duterte’s rivals in May’s presidential election created the Hitler analogy during the campaign and those unfavorable views about the President were triggered by “unverified reports” by the foreign media.
Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella went into overdrive as his communication team scrambled to put out the global fire started by Mr. Duterte by saying, in an arrival speech upon returning from a two-day visit to Vietnam, that he would be “happy to slaughter” 3 million drug addicts in the Philippines, just as Hitler murdered millions of Jews before and during World War II.
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In an interview on state-run dzRB radio, Abella claimed that Mr. Duterte did not in any way praise Hitler as a role model in his remarks that he said were “oblique” or skewed explanations of what he really meant.
“The President’s reference to the slaughter was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer, a Hitler, which is a label that he rejects,” Abella said.
In a statement issued later, Abella said “the President himself flatly rejected the Hitler comparison as can be seen in his reaction.”
Mr. Duterte’s comments came in the wake of threats from the United Nations and the European Union to bring him to the International Court of Justice to face charges over the killing of more than 3,000 drug suspects in his war on drugs.
The President lamented that he was being “portrayed or pictured to be a cousin of Hitler” by his human rights critics who wanted to charge him with genocide without making any effort to go beyond the headlines.
Filipinos shamed
He said such criticisms were just fine when he was just the mayor of Davao City, but not now that he is President because they cause the Filipinos shame.
“Hitler massacred 3 million Jews [historians say 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust]. Now there [are] 3 million drug addicts … I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have …,” he said, pausing and pointing to himself.
“You know my victims. I would like [them] to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition,” he added.
Mr. Duterte also spoke about genocide in a profanity-laced speech before the Filipino community in Vietnam on Wednesday night.
“Genocide is when you kill the Jews or one tribe, one sect belonging to the same religion or a race. Why will I commit genocide? I will kill these son of a bitches. They have done nothing but destroy my country. Then they will charge me with genocide, son of a bitch,” he said.
Opponents blamed
In his statement, Abella blamed Mr. Duterte’s political rivals for making the “Hitler allusion” during the campaign.
“The Palace deplores the Hitler allusion of President Duterte’s antidrug war as another crude attempt to vilify the President in the eyes of the world,” he said.
“It is a matter of record that the reference to Hitler did not originate from the President. Days before the May presidential election, the President’s opponents introduced this issue to gain political mileage. It did not work,” said Abella, who did not name the political rivals.
Two days before the May 9 national elections, outgoing President Benigno Aquino III had warned that Mr. Duterte’s rising popularity was akin to that of Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.
‘Unverified reports’
“I hope we learn the lessons of history,” Aquino said in widely reported remarks. “We should remember how Hitler came to power.”
Abella also blamed “unverified reports” that “shape the views” of people outside the Philippines, citing the statements of US officials, specifically a foreign news wire report that claimed Mr. Duterte called US President Barack Obama a “son of a bitch” before they were set to meet on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Laos last month.
Mr. Duterte explained that he did not cuss Obama and that foreign media erroneously translated “putang ina,” the Filipino equivalent of “son of a bitch.”
Abella stood by Mr. Duterte’s statement that the killings of drug suspects by police and vigilantes would have a positive effect on the country.
“He likewise draws an oblique conclusion that while the Holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the future generation of Jews, the so-called extrajudicial killings, roundly attributed to him, will nevertheless result in the salvation of the next generation of Filipinos,” Abella said.
Oops
But Abella cleaned up his remarks in a second statement by using “legitimate police operations” for “the so-called extrajudicial killings.”
The revised statement read: “He likewise draws an oblique conclusion, that while the Holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the future generations of Jews, drug-related killings as a result of legitimate police operations (as opposed to so-called extrajudicial killings of criminals, wrongly attributed to him, as these are not state-sanctioned) will nevertheless result in the salvation of the next generation of Filipinos.”
In a text message, he further explained the positive impact of the killings: “Assuming regularity in the carrying out of their duties, the war on drugs carried out through police and military personnel will redound to the greater good, especially in preserving the well-being of the next generation.”
While he did not retract or offer an apology for Mr. Duterte’s remarks as demanded by the World Jewish Congress, Abella, in his revised statement, tried to soften the President’s comments.
PH welcomed Jews
“The Philippines recognizes the deep significance of the Jewish experience, especially their tragic and painful history. We do not wish to diminish the profound loss of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, that deep midnight of their story as a people,” Abella said.
He added: “In Asia, only the Philippines gave a safe haven for Jewish refugees during World War II with lands in Marikina donated for the settlement of a Jewish community. More farmlands were offered in Mindanao for the Jewish settlers. The President knows this and values our strong historical ties with the Jewish people.”
Abella did not entertain any questions during the weekly Saturday briefing except to announce the President’s plan to visit the wake of the late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago at Immaculate Conception Cathedral Grottos in Cubao, Quezon City, last night. With reports from AFP/TVJ