Free Republic

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte escalated his unusually confrontational rhetoric with China over the fate of a disputed South China Sea island on Thursday, warning Beijing that Philippine troops are prepared to conduct “suicide missions” if China does not back down. “I will not plead or beg, but I am just telling you to lay off the Pagasa because I have soldiers their,” Duterte said in a speech on Thursday, using the common Filipino name for Thitu Island in the Spratly chain. “If you touch it, that’s another story. Then I will tell my soldiers, ‘Prepare for suicide missions,’” Duterte warned...

MANILA, Philippines — The United States has remained the country most trusted by Filipinos, and Russia and China the least, according to the latest Pulse Asia survey. The poll, taken from Dec. 14 to 21 last year, showed 84 percent of Filipinos saying the Philippines should extend “a great deal/fair amount of trust” to the US. This was higher than the 79 percent recorded in March 2017. The US was followed by Japan and Australia with trust ratings of 75 percent and 72 percent, respectively. Great Britain/United Kingdom obtained 57 percent. Reacting to the survey result, Malacañang expressed optimism Filipinos’...

MANILA, Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte mocked the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, calling it “silly” on Saturday, December 29. In a speech in Kidapawan City, Cotabato, the President attacked the doctrine of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as he once again went into a tirade against priests and the Catholic Church. "You’re already praying at one God, then you’re going to pray at these cursed saints. There’s only one God. There’s only one God, period. You cannot divide God into 3, that’s silly,” said the President. Before attacking the Holy Trinity doctrine,...

Mr. Trump’s sidestepping of reports that the C.I.A. believes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing as “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” was jarring. But every president since Harry Truman has aligned with unsavory Middle Eastern rulers in the service of national interests. The difference here is that Mr. Trump seemed unapologetic about this state of affairs with only a passing nod to the affront to our values that Mr. Khashoggi’s murder represents. That’s nothing to cheer. But it is vitally important to evaluate the policy on its merits more than its mode of expression. And...

FULL TITLE: Unfixable? Several nations have tried to restore democracy after populist strongmen. It was never the same. In April, aided by massive gerrymandering, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling coalition crushed opposition in Hungary’s national elections, claiming a supermajority in the parliament. The prime minister — who had used two prior terms in office to dominate media outlets, alter electoral rules so that urban areas were massively underrepresented and seize control of the top courts — moved to further consolidate his power. He is pushing Central European University, a leading academic institution backed by George Soros, whom Orban has demonized,...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has rejected an offer by the US defence chief and other top American officials to buy F-16 fighter jets, saying such an acquisition would be “utterly useless” because his country needs lighter combat aircraft to fight insurgents. Duterte scoffed at the offer on Thursday, saying it had been floated in a letter by Defence Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. The offer came after he was slammed by the US for his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs, he said.

When Maximo Garcia heard that he was on a list of local drug suspects in Mayombo, he tried to clear his name with the police chief, explaining that he no longer used drugs and had never sold them. Four days later, the Philippine news site Rappler reports, a masked gunman shot up Garcia's house as he and his family were eating lunch, wounding him and killing his 5-year-old granddaughter. So it goes in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, which has claimed somewhere between 7,000 and 13,000 lives since he took office in June 2016. Although Duterte's bloody crusade...

Months before Trump was elected, Rodrigo Duterte proved the strength of anti-establishment populism in the Philippines by taking the presidency in a campaign filled with black-and-white promises to wipe out crime by killing drug pushers. And when his administration did indeed start killing hundreds of suspected drug pushers and alleged addicts, US-Philippine relations – historically one of the strongest alliances in Asia – plummeted. At its lowest point, Duterte called former president Barack Obama a “son of a whore” for criticising his human rights record. For Trump, however, the Philippines is bringing out the red carpet.

On Saturday, President Trump made headlines when he invited Rodrigo Duterte to the White House for a conversation about the current state of drugs. Duterte has earned a reputation as a harsh dictator, due to his habits of ordering the deaths of persons connected to drugs and narcotics. Many people dislike Duterte’s authoritarian style of leadership; it has been noted that his commands engendered the deaths of thousands of people with no link to drugs. Nonetheless, the Commander in Chief met with Duterte and the two powerful leaders discussed the manner in which the Philippines have been fighting to end...

Possibly thinking a major U.S. aid package had been terminated, an enraged Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said “bye, bye” to America in retaliation Saturday and threatened to dissolve an agreement that allows U.S. troops to visit the Philippines. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government aid agency, did not actually cancel the aid. Instead, the agency deferred a vote on the renewal of aid for the Philippines “subject of a further review of concerns around rule of law and civil liberties.” Duterte won the presidential election earlier this year largely based on his promise to aggressively target drug dealers and...

Give him his due. At the very least, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte is never dull. Beyond calling Barack Obama names that would naturally lead in another setting to a brawl behind the schoolyard, the canny if vulgar Duterte is surprisingly effective at doing what smaller powers are supposed to do in a multipolar setting: playing larger powers off one another. With the Philippines long seen as being comfortably in the pocket of Washington, the country’s new leader has initiated a policy of strategic drift away from the US, moving to a more equidistant position between America and China. Duterte being...

Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday told U.S. President Barack Obama to "go to hell" and said the United States had refused to sell some weapons to his country but he did not care because Russia and China were willing suppliers. In his latest salvo, Duterte said he had lost respect for the United States and railed at its concerns about his bloody war on drugs, calling his critics "fools" who could not stop him carrying out a campaign that has killed more than 3,400 people in just over three months. In a tangential, at times profane speech in Manila,...

This week in Vietnam, President Rodrigo Duterte told a collection of Filipinos his government would cease training with the U.S. following the upcoming PHIBEX 33 amphibious exercises off Luzon next month. “So I’m serving notice now to the Americans. I will maintain the military alliance, the RP-US pact which our countries signed in the early 50s.” During this meeting he called for expanded trade relations with China and Russia. During the planned exercise--PHIBEX 33—some 1,400 U.S. service members based in Okinawa, Japan will work side-by-side with 500 Philippine Armed Forces personnel to improve capabilities and more efficient operations during a...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte plunged one of the United States' most important Asian alliances deeper into uncertainty on Wednesday by declaring upcoming U.S.-Philippines military exercises "the last," and ruling out any joint navy patrols.

Treat us as your brothers and not enemies. President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday personally pleaded to the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines to allow Filipino fishermen to fish over the disputed West Philippine Sea. “I hope the Chinese may find a place in their hearts for the Filipinos. I hope you treat us [as] your brothers and not enemies and take note of our plight,” Duterte said in front of Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua during his speech at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Philippines is firmly committed to its alliance with the United States but will not be lectured on human rights and treated like a "little brown brother," the country's Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay said on Thursday. Yasay rejected criticism of Duterte's war on drugs, in which thousands have been killed, saying that Philippines would never condone illegal killings, and said relations with Washington should be based on mutual respect. "I am asking our American friends, American leaders, to look at our aspirations," he said. "We cannot forever be the little brown brothers of America. ... We have...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has told American special forces to leave Mindanao, blaming their presence in the southern region for the continuing conflict, while signalling his desire to "reorient" the country's foreign policy vis-a-vis the United States. Just days after declaring that the Philippines "will pursue an independent foreign policy", Duterte said on Monday in a rambling speech from the presidential palace.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he wants U.S. forces out of his country's south and blamed America for inflaming Muslim insurgencies in the region, in his first public statement opposing the presence of American troops. Duterte has had an uneasy relationship with the U.S. since becoming president in June and has been openly critical of American security policies. As a candidate, he declared he would chart a foreign policy that would not depend on America, his country's treaty ally.

Barack Obama has cancelled a meeting with the president of the Philippines after Rodrigo Duterte appeared to call him a “son of a whore”. The move followed a warning from Duterte to the US president to keep off the subject of extrajudicial killings in his country’s brutal drug war when they were due to meet on Tuesday at a regional summit in Laos. Duterte told a press conference that Obama “must be respectful”. The firebrand president was answering a reporter’s question about how he intended to explain the extrajudicial killings to Obama, before boarding a plane to Laos for the...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday urged communist rebels to start killing drug traffickers, adding another layer to a controversial war on crime in which he has warned thousands will die.