Palace: Duterte did not compare self to Hitler
AFTER President Rodrigo Duterte likened himself to Adolf Hitler, a Palace official clarified that the President was merely addressing the “negative comparison” that people made between him and the Nazi dictator.
“The President’s reference to the slaughter was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer, a Hitler, a label he rejects,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement.
“He (Duterte) likewise draws an oblique conclusion that while the Holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the future generations of Jews, the so-called extra-judicial killings, wrongly attributed to him, will nevertheless result in the salvation of the next generation of Filipinos,” he added.
Abella released the statement after Germany was appalled by Duterte’s remarks comparing his drug war to Hitler’s crusades to kill Jews.
Hitler killed six million Jews at the end of World War II while over 1,000 drug dependents have been killed in the Philippines since Duterte took office on June 30.
In a speech Duterte delivered early Friday at the airport of Davao City, Duterte said he had been portrayed as a “cousin of Hitler”. He then said he would be “happy to slaughter” three million drug addicts in the country.
“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” the President said.
“If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me]. You know, my victims, I would [like them] to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation for perdition,” he added.
International reports said German foreign ministry spokesperson Martin Schaefer described Duterte’s statement as “unacceptable.”
“Any comparison of the singular atrocities of the Holocaust with anything else is totally unacceptable,” Schaefer said.
Abella said the Philippines recognized “the deep significance of the Jewish experience especially their tragic and painful history.”
“We do not wish to diminish the profound loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust - that deep midnight of their story as a people,” the Palace spokesperson said.