Duterte threatens to pull-out from UN; foreign affairs experts say ‘not good’

DAVAO CITY — President Duterte threatened to sever ties with the United Nations (UN) if it continues to criticize his administration’s fight against illegal drugs that was blamed to have caused the increasing number of drug suspects killed.

But foreign affairs experts said that such rhetoric from the President is definitely not helpful and is making the Philippines more

and more internationally isolated.

Apparently irked by the criticism, Duterte slammed the UN for failing to show him some respect being the country’s highest elected official.

He said that the UN should have sent its representative to talk to him before it issued its criticism with respect to allegations of extrajudicial killings of illegal drug suspects when he came into power a month ago.

“So, the next time you issue it, I do not want to insult you. But maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations,” Duterte blurted out at an early morning press briefing at the Presidential Guesthouse at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Panacan here.

He said that he might just decide to create his own organization and invite China and African countries to join. But he will only leave if the UN refunds the Philippines all its contributions.

“The joke is on you. You have to refund me with these so many contributions that we have made all these years. Isauli ninyo contributions namin (Give our contributions back to us) and we will go out. We contribute a certain amount for the maintenance of UN, right? Oh, you return the money to us and we will go out,” he said.

He added that the government can build drug rehabilitation centers using the money it has contributed to the UN.

He said that he is willing to pay the UN representative in the country a visit to discuss the UN’s accussation.

“You observe protocol because if you do that directly you are addressing yourself to me. Remember that I am – I do not like to say it because I wanted to be called mayor still – I am the president of the sovereign,” he said.

Duterte said that he assumes full responsibility for the police drug operations that led to the killing of some drug suspects who reportedly resisted arrest.

Duterte ready to face UN rapporteur He said he is unfazed by the UN special rapporteurs and even dared them to come and prove the accusations being hurled at him.

“Okay, you guys, you law expert of the United Nations, come here, come here and face me and make the accusations and I will show you the statistics and I will hold your finger and teach you how to count,” he said.

He urged the UN not to only look at the side of the criminals but also the efforts of the government in protecting its people.

“The other day I lost two soldiers who where assisting the police. This time it is the police, a day after. We lose about two policemen a day in connection with the drug campaign,” he said.

He said that criminals get killed when they fight it out with the arresting police authorities.

The president challenged the UN to compare the number of killings now with the previous administration.

“And I would ask him, compare it with the previous administration. Same deaths, but these are the innocent children being killed, raped, victims of hold-up and everything, this time, almost with the same number, but it is the criminals who are dying. You can hardly hear now of a student waylaid or a hold-up victim in a bus,” he said.

CHR slammed, too Duterte also lambasted Commission on Human Rights (CHR), who apparently made him its “whipping boy” on human rights violations, for insisting in “counting the dead criminals and never made a comparison of the dead victims, innocent people, law-abiding people being killed in the streets.”

Duterte was firm in saying that he has an obligation as President to protect the innocent, law-abiding citizens and “was never tasked by any law to protect the life of the criminals.”

“I grew up and taught by my parents to be on the side of fairness, to protect the good, and to take care of your country,” he said.

Tirades ‘not helpful’

Duterte’s tirades, particularly his threat to withdraw the country’s membership in the UN, are not helpful said Prof. Richard Heydarian of the De La Salle University in Manila Political Science department.

Heydarian described these latest tirades as “off-the-cuff rhetorical outbursts that was obviously not well thought out.”

However, it will nonetheless intensify a highly-unfavorable view of the Duterte administration by the international community, he said.

To be fair to Duterte, said Heydarian, the President has “very strong feelings for a need to have a more independent foreign policy, not aligned with the West and not subject to external intervention.”

“And there are legitimate reasons behind it, for sure,” he added. “Sovereignty is sacred and indispensable.”

UN exit ‘unthinkable’

For his part, former Philippine ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja said the implications of Duterte’s threat to withdraw the country’s membership in the UN is too serious even to think or consider.

According to Baja, who was also a former foreign affairs undersecretary for policy, said the President “should not react to officious and tendentious comments of UN officials.”

“Let his subalterns do the talking and the walking,” he stressed. “We are Charter member of the Organization and our participation in the UN system has been recognized.”

However, Heydarian stressed that an exit from the UN, “the penultimate expression of global governance,” is unprecedented and extremely unlikely.

“Even to suggest is unthinkable,” he noted.

PH relies on UN mechanisms

Heydarian cited the South China Sea case filed by the Philippine against China before the UN-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration a body under the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas.

He said this in effect means the Philippines has been relying on the UN mechanisms to defend its rights against external threats.

“We are a highly integrated developing economy, and for long a pillar of the UN system despite our humble material resources,” Heydarian emphasized.

Congress leaders react

Meanwhile, senators are not about to consider the President’s threat to pull out of the UN for real since the Chief Executive has been known to burst out in anger when something ticks him.

“Knowing the President, this is probably one of his off the cuff links remarks to state his point. Much like the ‘martial law’ remark (he made earlier),” Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said in a text message.

“He is a very intelligent man. Leaving the UN will throw our nation back into the stone age. He knows very well that being an isolationist country is not the best interest of the Filipino people,” Gatchalian said.

At the House of Representatives, opposition and administration congressmen dismissed the President’s threat, but reminded him against airing disparaging remarks against the international body.

Senior Deputy Minority Leader Lito Atienza aired the belief that Duterte’s statement against the UN was a mere declaration of frustration over accusations of human rights violation.

Senior administration Rep. Rodel Batocabe (Ako Bicol) said it was possible that the president may not have been quoted correctly.

“And assuming that the president actually said that, I don’t think that he was serious. He probably meant that we don’t need the UN to interfere and offer solutions to our problems,” he said.

On the other hand, Akbayan Rep. Tom Villarin urged Duterte to be “more circumspect in dealing with the UN and with other foreign countries. (With reports from Hannah L. Torregoza, Ben R. Rosario, and Elena L. Aben)