Obama Cancels Meeting With Philippine President After “Son Of Whore” Insult
MEP: President Barack Obama canceled what would have been his first meeting with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, according to a White House spokesman, hours after the Philippine leader called his American counterpart “son of whore”.
Duterte, who has been roundly criticised abroad for a ‘war on drugs’ that has killed about 2,400 people since he took office two months ago, said hours later that he regretted his comments “came across as a personal attack” on the U.S. president.
The Filipino leader is known for his colourful language, though this time it has had a diplomatic impact, correspondents say.
Duterte was due to hold a bilateral meeting with Obama on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of a gathering of global leaders hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, the capital of the Laos.
Duterte, 71, gained a reputation as a tough-talking, no-nonsense leader over his 22 years as mayor of the southern city of Davao. He campaigned for president on the promise of eradicating the country of illegal drugs within six months, without regard for human rights or due process — in the spring, he threatened to dump drug dealers’ bodies into Manila Bay “and fatten all the fish there.”
