After President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations, he retracted his statement and said it was a joke. What a surprise.
When he was asked about the threat during an ambush interview yesterday, he tells reporters, “Can’t you take a joke? What will you join, the association of those who have sunk?”
It seems like the joke route is a go-to when the President is saying something controversial lately. Remember the rape joke?
Duterte made the threat a few days ago after UN special rapporteur on summary executions Agnes Callamard suggested that Philippine officials will be held liable. “Maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations. If you are that rude, son of a bitch, then we’ll just leave you,” Duterte said last Sunday.
Although the possibility of us pulling away from the UN seems highly impossible —even DFA secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. thinks so—we don’t think it’s right to make a “joke” out of this. Take note that the deaths amid the war on drugs is concerning, and international bodies are taking notice of them.
How about instead of making hostile jokes, he just cooperates in making the situation better somehow? He is our country’s leader after all.
[Inquirer.net]
Photo courtesy of Inquirer.net
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