German gov’t irked by Locsin’s remarks
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has earned the ire of the German government over his remarks that “embraced” President Duterte’s previous statement drawing parallelism between Adolf Hitler’s horrific policy against the Jews and his bloody ‘war-on-drugs’ campaign.
German journalist Arnd Henze who interviewed Locsin in Berlin early this week, said the Foreign Ministry of Germany has reportedly summoned the acting Philippine ambassador about the “unacceptable” remarks made by the visiting foreign secretary.
“UPDATE: Philippine’s acting Ambassador has been summoned by German’s Foreign Ministry. It has been made clear that the remarks by @teddyboylocsin were totally unacceptable,” Henze said on his Twitter account early Friday morning (Manila time).
Locsin was in Germany last week for the opening of the new Philippine Embassy in the capital Berlin.
During the interview, Henze, a correspondent for the German broadcaster ARB, categorically asked Locsin on whether Hitler is a role model for Duterte.
Henze’s question was anchored on Duterte’s 2016 statement wherein the President said: “Hitler massacred three million Jews. There (are) three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”
The German journalist even tried to show a visibly irked Locsin the video clip of the President’s controversial statement.
“I know he (Duterte) said (that)… I don’t know what he meant by that. I said the same thing. I myself said the same thing before he even said it,” Locsin told the German reporter.
“He just mentioned it, I don’t think he’s (Hitler) a role model for his policy,” Locsin added.
Locsin pointed out in the interview that Duterte’s war-on-drugs policy has even “inspired greater confidence” among the populace, in an apparent reference to the latest survey showing more Filipinos believe there are fewer drug addicts in their area.
On his Twitter account, Henze also took a swipe on Locsin’s previous “extremely offensive comments” about the Holocaust.
“In our interview, Philippine’s Foreign Minister embraced remarks of President Duterte about Hitler and slaughtering 3 million addicts. It’s not the first time he made extremely offensive comments with reference to the Shoa,” Henze said in a separate tweet on February 19. Shoa is a German word for Holocaust.