US a bit insecure over Russian ties — Palace

The Duterte administration’s effort to seek stronger ties with Russia may impel the United States to give the Philippines fairer deals, Malacañang said yesterday.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the US may feel “a little insecure” about the stronger ties between Manila and Moscow, which were affirmed during Duterte’s recent official visit to Russia.

“As he (Duterte) said, ‘I will maintain our relations with the US.’ I don’t think it will be affected. Perhaps if there is any effect, it would be for the better because US would now feel a little insecure about it; where before we tailor our position with that of the United States,” Panelo told ANC.

“Apart from that, it should be more open into giving us fair deals,” he added.

Panelo cited the Philippines’ plan to buy firearms from the US, which some American lawmakers opposed due to allegations that Duterte is promoting human rights violations.

He claimed there was no such condition when Philippine officials talked to their Russian counterparts about the possible purchase of military equipment.

“Remember the Marawi incident, where the Chinese government and the Russian government gave us rifles, until now, they haven’t asked a single… according to the President not even a single toothpick. It’s free,” Panelo said, referring to the 2017 terrorist attack in Marawi that prompted Duterte to place Mindanao under martial law.

The relationship between Manila and Washington became uneasy when Duterte became president in 2016.

The US under then president Barack Obama had criticized the spate of deaths linked to Duterte’s war on illegal drugs, an act that the toughtalking Philippine leader regarded as an intrusion into Philippine affairs.

Duterte has denied endorsing extrajudicial killings but has repeatedly ordered policemen to shoot drug suspects who pose danger to their safety.

While Duterte was hostile to Obama, he was friendly to US President Donald Trump, who has expressed support for his anti-drug war. He even described Trump as “a good friend.”

In a speech at the Valdai forum in Sochi last Oct. 3, Duterte said he was not against the US, which he described as a “close friend” of the Philippines.

He also clarified that the issue is not the current global order, but the “actions of certain actors that violate the very principles that underpin this order.”

“We are tired of the misguided and self-serving crusades of the few. It is time that they are challenged,” Duterte said.

“The Philippines does not ask for special treatment nor favors from its partners. It does not seek exemption from the norms and principles that have kept the peace in our world for decades,” he said at the forum.

“What we seek – as I assume what the Russian people and all nations also desire – is fairness, equality and mutual respect. We want a strengthened rules-based order where countries, big or small, are treated the same,” he added.