President Rodrigo Duterte. JOAN BONDOC/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Malacañang has broken its silence on the firestorm created by President Rodrigo Duterte’s remarks comparing himself to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and that he would “be happy” exterminate 3 million drug addicts like the demagogue’s extermination of Jews.
READ: Duterte ‘happy to slaughter’ drug suspects; cites Hitler
In a brief radio briefing Saturday morning, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella clarified the President did not in any way praise Hitler as a role model in his remarks that he said were “oblique” or skewed explanations of what he meant.
“The Philippines recognizes the deep significance of the Jewish experience especially their tragic and painful history. We do not wish to diminish the profound loss of 6 million Jews in the holocaust that deep midnight of their story as a people,” said Abella who did not entertain any question during the interview over state-owned DZRB radio.
“The President’s reference to the slaughter was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer, a Hitler, which is a label that he rejects,” said Abella.
Abella, however, stood by the President’s statement that the unresolved killings of drug suspects by police and vigilantes would have a positive effect on the country.
“He likewise draws an oblique conclusion that while the holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the future generation of Jews, the so-called extrajudicial killings, roundly attributed to him, will nevertheless result in the salvation of the next generation of Filipinos,” said Abella.