A US official on Tuesday dodged President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent pronouncements on the killing of African-Americans as he said the United States will maintain its strong ties with the Philippines.
“In response to your previous question, we’re by no means perfect, but we strive to have in place a justice system that treats all people with respect and respects their human rights,” Mark Toner, deputy spokesman of the US State Department, said in a briefing in Washington.
Duterte on Tuesday slammed what he called the spate of killings of black Americans in response to Washington’s “deep concern” over the reports of summary killings in the Philippines, saying he would be sending a “rapporteur” to the US to ensure it was also upholding human rights.
Toner said the strong relations between the US and the Philippines would remain strong amid its criticism of Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs that had resulted in the deaths of many suspects.
“We have a very frank and candid relationship with the Philippines but a good relationship with the Philippines. They’re under a new leadership now with President Duterte. He is well-known, as we all know in this room, as a plain-speaking, I guess, politician. It’s not for me to judge that,” Toner said.
“I’m just going to say that we continue to work with the Filipino government on a broad range of bilateral and regional issues, while at the same time making clear that as the Philippines addresses issues that touch on human rights we’re going to make our concerns clear.”
Toner said the US will not take Duterte’s insults seriously because of the importance of its cooperation with the Philippines and of its position on the South China Sea, but it will not turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses as a result of the drug killings in the country.
“We take any credible allegations of human rights violations very, very seriously, and will raise them with the Filipino government,” Toner said.