PH’s former ASEAN ambassador: Duterte had right to be offended with braggart Trudeau

In a press conference on Tuesday, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that he expressed concern over the alleged extrajudicial killings happening in the Philippines to President Rodrigo Duterte.

"I emphasized the people-to-people ties between Canada and the Philippines and the great connection there but I also mentioned human rights, the rule of law, specifically the extrajudicial killings being an issue Canada is concerned with,” Trudeau said.

When Duterte asked about Trudeau's comment, Duterte said:  'I said I will not explain. It is a personal and official insult. That’s why you hear me throwing out curses and epithets.'

Photo credits to the owner

 Photo credits to the owner

Meanwhile, Wilfrido Villacorta, Philippines former ambassador to the ASEAN said that Duterte had a right to be angry with Trudeau for bringing up the topic of human rights and extrajudicial killings.

Villacorta said that Trudeau may have gone beyond protocol when he discussed his conversation with Duterte to the press.

“He should have said, ‘I have raised the matter with the President.’ Period. But he kept on talking. Of course, any host-leader would feel offended. This is intervention,” ABS-CBN quoted him as saying.

“There’s nothing wrong per se about raising human rights, but to brag about it, I think he was playing up to the Canadian audience,” he said.

Villacorta also said that the ASEAN was not primarily aimed to be a problem-solving organization in the first place.

“It is meant to manage the problem so that it doesn’t become worse; to resolve conflicts through peaceful means,” he said. 

“Whether you’re talking about the Rohingya question, the EJK supposedly, or the South China Sea, this is not the priority of ASEAN,” he added. 

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Source: Kicker Daily News