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PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday reiterated his apology to the Jewish community for his controversial remarks that drew parallels with Adolf Hitler’s killing of Jews during the Holocaust and the bloody war on drugs.
Speaking at the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year feast) at the Beit Yaacov Synagogue in Makati, Duterte told members of the Jewish Association of the Philippines that his apology “comes from the heart” and that his remarks were just a “slip of the tongue.”
“I came here with a prepared speech but I will not read it…I would like to greet you on your holy day and I would like to apologize and it comes from the heart. It was not intended… It has nothing to do with the memory of the Jews because in my country we do not tinker the memory of our ancestors,” Duterte said.
“It’s just a slip of the tongue… Please accept my apology, it will never happen again. We will always be friends. Even if we don’t have the same structure of government, we share a common denominator—we only believe in one God,” he added.
Duterte maintained that it was his political rivals who first painted a picture of him as a mass murderer.
“It’s my character. That’s what I am. And God created me this way I suppose… I mentioned the Jewish and that was what terribly wrong, and for that I apologize. But I will never… I am not one of the racist members of this republic,” he said.
“They pictured me to be killing so many persons of the drug problem and I would say that this is true… There is no law in my land which says I cannot threaten criminals,” Duterte added.
Upon arriving from an official visit to Vietnam, Duterte on Friday said he would be “happy to slaughter” three million drug addicts in the Philippines by himself in the same way that Hitler murdered millions of Jews before and during the Second World War.
“If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have …,” Duterte told reporters in Davao City, before pausing and pointing to himself.
The President’s remarks drew a barrage of condemnation from Jewish leaders, the United Nations, German and Israeli governments, the Pentagon, and international rights groups.
After accusing the media again of taking him out of context, the President nevertheless apologized to the Jews for his controversial remarks, saying he did not intend to derogate their memory.