Media Interview After the DICT Inauguration

Media interview of President Rodrigo Duterte after the Inauguration of the new Davao International Container Terminal in Panabo City, Davao del Norte on 2 September 2016.

Q: … guard, following the—what you mentioned earlier that the you receive a report at there seems to new barges coming from China at the Scarborough shoal. How you were gonna address that, considering you said what it seems there building more structure again?

PRES. DUTERTE: Well, timely that I am going to Laos to attend the ASEAN. There will a time there’s gonna be one-on-one with China, the United States, Russia, pati another one—can’t to figure out, basta ‘yung the heavy weight of the planet. I don’t know if one on one na per country, or one on one with the group, tapos kami dito sa other side. But in my, maybe in the private talks, magchika-chika na kami. I’d like him to the Ambassador to just answer me one question. Is there any ongoing construction for expansion in the South China Sea?

And whether or not ah we can still have the fishing rights. Which is really the entitlement of our country. Having one the arbitral proceeding.

Q: So, you mean sir, they still have not yet responded to your appeal to let our fishermen go back?

PRES. DUTERTE: I should be expecting a favorable answer when I get to Laos four days from now.

Q: Still on the ASEAN for me, It’s your first ASEAN Summit, what message do you want to give or delivered to the ASEAN community and have you already discussed your or finalized your talking points with US President Obama and President Putin?

PRES. DUTERTE: Well I would just say that we are ready to cooperate and establishing good order among nations, that we are ready to do our part internationally, comply with our obligations, comply with the contracts that we have entered into with foreigners in this country doing business and we are ready to talk also about terrorism and human trafficking, drugs, making my country a transshipment also by the Sinaloas and all those big drug syndicates in China and in Asia rather and in China because the drug lords are there.

Q: Sir, ‘yung talking points, nadoon ‘yun sa tanong ko?

Talking points with the President Obama and President Putin sir, have you finalize this?

PRES. DUTERTE: Wala, I do not. I simply do not—you are talking about anything and everything. They can have their own agenda. What can I have mine, when I—you know I do not step in my system really to. I do not prepare speeches. I do not have notes, I just go along the drift where the talk is going to.

Q: Thank you sir.

Q: Hi sir, sir you mention…

PRES. DUTERTE: Lima ka, kasi kaibigan tayo hangang mahulog ‘yang.. madilim na

Q: Sir you mention before that you won’t declare a state emergency of Sulu because of the ASG.

PRES. DUTERTE: No.

Q: But how there sir, at what sir can point..consider..

PRES. DUTERTE: Nothing of this [inaudible].. Well, we have I said the fighting going on and as of the latest it’s between the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF. I think ang naipit diyan ang MN, so pagka-ganoon we do not have a peaceful there in Jolo. I suggest that Misuari just simply goes out of his lare, there is den. And the if he wants I’ll—the military or police will just escort him to Davao for a better place or any other place he wants to be —when he begins to talks to me.

I don’t care, whether it’s in Jolo, Zamboanga it’s fine with me.

Q: Sir, follow-up

PRES. DUTERTE: Sige, ‘oh

Mia: Sir, there’s this text message circulating that the ASG will attack one of the Military Camp sir. Do you have any order to the AFP sir?

PRES. DUTERTE: Well, that should put us in a full alert now, because of reprisals and that is not new to us. It could be anywhere, it could be in the whole of Mindanao. It seems that, my plans have been over taken to saving one thing to have more police SAF trained but five battalions and several newly recruits, new recruits for soldier of the AFP.

Q: Hi sir, how are you after the assassination plot, and is it true that Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, requested for additional security for your family?

PRES. DUTERTE: Well, he must be worried because he has many children. Nakakatakot lang rin, ako, well Inday, pati sila kaya na nila ‘yan and Sebastian, medyo malikot to, pasyal ng pasyal. But otherwise, we can defend ourself, ako—ako – I can walk where I want to go and sinasanay ko ‘yung sarili ko.

Q: How about Kitty sir, your little kid?

PRES. DUTERTE: Well, not one thing she has I think a security also, but siya lang. Ako, hindi nga it useless to be talking about the Presidential Security Command because they’re always around. Whether I like it or not, I have been driven them away they want. But they just don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do.

Alam mo naman ako malapit sa tao. I go to where, I embrace them, I –chicka-chika. Kasi always me normal as a Politician. But apparently when you are already a President, everything changes. You cannot have your cake and eat it to, ika nga.

Q: Sir, last question po. But are you planning to lessen your schedule outside the Malacañang?

PRES. DUTERTE: Again ma’am?

Q: Are you planning na bawasan po ‘yung schedule niyo outside Malacañang?

PRES. DUTERTE: No, I will not—hindi, ayaw ko lang magyabang. Pero ‘No’, absolutely no.

Q: Thank you sir.

PRES. DUTERTE: I live the way I wanted, I work the way I must.

Sige ‘oh, wala pa dalawa palang mga bente ito sila eh.

Q: Sir good afternoon, Sir coming into the ASEAN Summit, you mention kanina that, I’m Chino Gaston from GMA sir. You mentioned na we cannot be slapped everyday, may hangganan and then, we have even have to make a stand.

PRES. DUTERTE: Yes, because I hope China would realize that the—we went out [inaudible] away, we walk the extra mile to be

–extra mile to be conscious about this thing, that we not suppose to ignite. Ang problema is a everytime that they would reply, they always say that they are not willing to obey the arbitral. They could have stated it otherwise. Ako, hindi ako gumamit eh, ako ‘yung nanalo hindi ako gumagamit ng arbitral. Seldom.

Sana naman huwag nalang ninyong tanungin rin sila, kung i-honor nila, because they have said they’re refuse. What I would just want to know is there any additional construction going on. Specially, in the area of Masinloc. Because if it gets bigger and bigger much I as would like me know avoid the trouble now, the other countries might just decide to invoke the maritime safety and begin to question using us, since we have arbitral judgment in our hands. Kasi mag-salita kana, eh ikaw ang may hawak ng award eh. So, I do not dread the day. But I would just like to be comfortable until such time that I talk to them bilateral face to face, eyeball to eyeball.

Q: Sir, you also gave credit to the former President..

PRES. DUTERTE: Yes, because he was the one who initiated the filling of the case, before the Abu Sayyaf so, base on UNCLOS, doon sa International Tribunal.

That would put us in a right bearing, it is a journey the future but it has places in the right bearing.

Yes sir, may I help you?

Q: Yes, Michael Sullivan sir,

PRES. DUTERTE: Can you use the…

Q: Can I just ask, do you care one way or another about the growing criticism both at home and especially abroad, about the rising death toll in the war on drugs?

PRES. DUTERTE: No, not at all. Not a bit, because I said there is a crisis. If you are small country, with limited resources with not so much money at hand. I’m operating on a budget those prepared by other year–the previous year. The budget of tomorrow just like in any country, America is you prepared the budget now for next implementation. You know, we do not have the money. Because it is not in the budget, that nobody would have known. That when I become President, that there would be, three million and seven hundred thousand, I was worried about Davao, I thought it was also serious, but I never thought that would reach in that dimension when I become President, because it has reached million already.

I have a problem here. So, I will solve it the way with my limited resources, and the way I want it. I am not worried about the International Community, because I am not the President of the International Countries. I am the President of the Republic of the Philippines, and I must solve decisively this problem. Or else the 3 million 700 thousand will compromise the next generation of Filipino.

That is the thing that worries me, not the International Community. For all they can always talk and talk, I am invoking sovereignty. No interference, when never interfered anybody’s business.

Q: But the number of killings that have occurred that are not police related. They are not attributed to the police…

PRES. DUTERTE: Those bomb? That is the work of people also it the internecine and that is the resolve of the intrigue we planted so many years ago. We arrested him, but released him and we’ll just say that “Arrest the other guy because he was […] bail”. Then this guy will be arrested and say: You know, it was B not us. Then when they start killing each other you add more intrigues and they killed each other, better. Criminals killed criminals, that is not my worry. It is the extrajudicial killing of people, getting—well—getting rid of the criminals but their own hands.

But we are 104 millions, and I cannot control the criminal minds here. You must remember that along the way the drug crisis hurt so many people, including parents who raise their children from childhood to college. Spending money and time with your family, taking care and to realize that at the end of the day. Your son or daughter is hooked and destroyed for life.

That is a thing that we should worry or a soldier assigned here in Mindanao fighting in Jolo. Only to learn and there is a case, I cannot be specific now. He was ordered home because— her daughter was… and she’s only first grade. You know, I am sure you know Dirty Harry. And Dirty Harry felt something for the community. And if you are soldier or a policemen, and your child get hooks, with all the expenses and you have to borrow from the Government Insurance System, every election.. every enrolment.

And then you find your son destroyed, do you think I’ll limit myself to 100. I am telling you, I’ll tell frankly now, and you can repeated it all—that I were the father and I took care of this child, a girl and then suddenly she found dead raped. Would you think, that I be contended just killing one, two, three? No, it’s always an eye for an eye at the end of the day.

Who taught us, the movie of— who’s that ano? Clint Eastwood because.. when he stood personified it that way. And most of us saw the pictures and every departed or—so many movie about Liam Neeson about his daughter getting ano… What is the different between Liam Neeson killing of a lot Europeans there and Americans. Because of what happen to her daughter. That is the same thing that happen in the—that is why the scriptwriter knows what is the mind of the human being and they write it, and they make it into movies. And it sure does, give us an example, and we think that the movie is good and should follow it. I mean to the average family man.

Now how about, there’s so many Clint Eastwoods in the police department. Why if it is bad, then it should have been not shown at all. Because it will poison the mind of everybody in the world. But since it was good, it was only Rated-R for adults. Everything is shaped up by the culture of the world now, it a sinking world. So, what goes in the mind of the Americans. And for example how you can you explain policemen shooting a black man there. So, one criminal mind, of the United State police, ten, twenty criminal minds of the police ‘yan. What is really the–Tell me what is the difference? Difference in figure? Or a difference in paradigm?

Q: So your word no regrets? None.

PRES. DUTERTE: No, listen my friend. Can I consider you a friend?

Q: I would hope so.

PRES. DUTERTE: Okay, let limit ourselves to truth. Okay, I’ll tell you. I state my life, my honor, and the Presidency itself, anytime—anytime they can impeach me, they can kill me. I’m 71 years old. I have to protect the next generation considering the sheer number of people without money. So, when you are a user, you have to push. To finance your urging, because you have to have a fix in a day. Although it’s small they said it’s a very poor community. Correct, I would not disagree with that. But at the end of the day, after selling to all of these poor people. You get about a million net at the end of the day, that is what happen.

Let us understand reality first, before we go to the ideal theories of human rights and everything. For after all America and Britain went into Iraq killed so many people on one theory, that there was weapons of mass destruction. Turn out it was—there was none at all. And so how many people were killed women, widowed, how many women children were killed along the way. And yet there is no apology except from Blair.

Many said that I was sorry. This one is armor, and it kills people. This one is only a bullet in the head; this one explodes and destroys the man that is being hit into bits and pieces.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Okay, thank you very much. Wala na pong questions, so—

PRES. DUTERTE: Ah, my helicopter would—anyway, if I go down the sea, you are to blame. Go ahead. No, no, I said in this presidency, I said I stake my life, my honor and the presidency itself. I don’t really need it that badly. Just don’t fuck with the next Filipinos because there will be a portion of that next generation that is or will be fractured.

Constant use of shabu for one year, your forensics say, not us, will shrink the brain of a person. You’re better off with poppy because it is organic, naturally grown, Heroin and cocaine does not really—shabu is a deadly mix. And if you really want to know, the water used there is the water that you use in your battery. So I have now about 700 what? Crazy people running around. I cannot build—oh, why don’t you build us so many rehab centers?

I became a President operating on a budget that will last for the end of—that is how it is in all governments. Whenever expect – or they who prepared it the previous year did not expect the real number of people that was… the real damage that was done to my country. I was very strict here, no problem. Many people will kill—but Davao is safe. You can—now, you try that in Manila. I challenge you, you walk here in Davao, and if you are mugged there or robbed there, I will resign. I’m telling you publicly, go around, and if you are hurt, you lose a penny or your wallet, or held up, tell me, as long as it is the truth – I said we’ll limit ourselves to the truth – I will resign.

Okay, next. It’s already dark. The pilots are worried. The security officers are—

MODERATOR: Mr. President, thank you very much from the mass media. Thank you, everybody.

PRES. DUTERTE: At the end of the day—you listen, do not make noise there, goddamn it, I will shoot all of you. At the end of the day, it is really your love for your country, and that y0u want a new generation of Filipinos will have a better life than they have had. And I said do not fuck my country. Do not fuck with our children. We cannot afford rehab centers of America that’s given free. We do not even have the materials because the budget is being prepared, the rehab will be next year. Because this budget now does not contain because it was never for—nobody foresaw that there were already millions being hit by the drug.

They thought it was just a street habit there. They never knew that it involved police generals. Even the secretary of justice and her lover was the one collecting drug money from… So how can you—there are about 508 police generals… about 500. In Region three alone, there are 100 drug pushers, who are policemen. Some of them are already have shrunk brains. And they will fight. They will fight, believe me. If you want, I can arrange, if there’s a drug operation – not here in Davao. If you are in Manila and if there’s an operation against drugs, you bring your camera and go with them, and you will see the truth. Just call me anytime, and it there’s a big operation, bring your camera and your men, and piggyback the entire operation. Fair enough?

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. ●