Philippine president slams UN rapporteur

By Roy Ramos

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (AA) --President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday hurled expletives at UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who recently urged the government to make a 17-year-old student's death the last in the administration's campaign against illegal drugs.

“Tell her: Don’t threaten me. She is stupid,” said Duterte at a press briefing. “Where does she come from?”

Callamard, a special rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions who hails from France, has repeatedly criticized Duterte’s brutal war on drugs and expressed concern over the rising cases of extrajudicial killings in the country.

The killing of student Kian Loyd Delos Santos on August 17 triggered nationwide outrage after he was dragged by plainclothes police officers to an alley in Manila and shot in the head. More than a thousand people attended his funeral procession.

Duterte has promised the public that those involved in Delos Santos' death would go to jail if found guilty.

Responding to Callamard, he said drug-related deaths happen everywhere, including France, and reminded Callamard that the Philippines is not under French jurisdiction.

“French? Let her go home there where they can detain a person almost indefinitely under French law. And the French law says you are guilty and you have to prove your innocence. Here, the presumption is you are innocent,” he added.

Duterte once again accused Callamard of speaking up before knowing the real situation and dared her to visit the Philippines to see the extent of the drug problem herself.

He challenged Callamard to a public debate last year as a condition to allow the UN to investigate the allegedly extrajudicial killings in the Philippines – a condition which she rejected.

The administration’s aggressive war on drugs, which has resulted in thousands of killings, has earned condemnation from various human rights advocates not only in the country but also from abroad.