President Rodrigo Duterte said “he is not a lap dog” of the United States government and showed no signs of backing down with his anti-US rhetoric.
“It depends if you will get a Philippine president who is your lap dog. You count me out. I’m not one of them,” according to Duterte before he left for Japan.
“Eh kahapon tumawag si Secretary Yasay nandito raw itong siya (Russel). Ang sabi ni – nag-usap daw sila, sabi na, ‘if you can just tone down your rhetoric against America.’ Sabi ko, huwag ninyo akong ganunin,” Duterte said. (Yesterday, Secretary Yasay called, he said [Russel] is here. He said, they talked and Russel said, ‘if you can just tone down your rhetoric against America.’ I said, don’t do that to me.)
The US Secretary did not meet Duterte during his 4-day visit to Manila.
“Every time, sabihin na they threatened us pati itong EU, akala mo mas bright kaysa sa atin (Every time, they say they threaten us, including the EU, you’d think they are brighter than us),” he said.
Duterte noted the US began the word war when former US Ambassador Philip Goldberg commented on his controversial rape remark during the presidential campaign.