Palace tells New York Times: Focus on US woes instead

Look at your own backyard.

Malacañang on Tuesday hit back at the New York Times for focusing on the Philippines even if the United States has its own “bunch of problems.”

“That particular newspaper for example in a normal course of events would sequence its reports on certain topics. However, there seems to be a rather focused attention on the Philippines,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernestro Abella said in a news briefing on Tuesday.

Abella was referring to the series of articles published by the newspaper critical to President Rodrigo Duterte, the most recent of which was a video documentary showing the bodies of the victims of his drug war and their grief-stricken families.

READ: Drug war on NY Times: ‘We no longer have fear in killing people’

“They do have a bunch of problems by the way in the US. I mean they can very well attend to it. On the other hand, it seems rather curious that suddenly there’s this rush of attention on the Philippine situation,” he said.

BACKSTORY: Palace decries demolition job by The New York Times

He said “it’s beyond the scope of The New York Times to be making comments like that,” noting the Philippines has a “solid relationship” with the United States.

“If you’re talking about the actual government of the US, we seem to have a pretty solid relationship. But when media like this makes comment like that, they seem to be coming in from the far left side, you know. It’s just curious,” he said.

On Monday, Abella said “one can only conclude that certain personalities and politicians have mounted a well-funded campaign utilizing hack writers and their ilk in their bid to oust (Duterte).”

Asked who could be behind the well-funded campaign, Abella said, “Who would benefit best from such an effect? The intention is for example to discredit the President and to apparently push it to its rational limits. So who would benefit from that?” IDL/rga