Philippines' firebrand leader to visit Israel in September

Rodrigo Duterte, who once compared himself to Hitler, will be first president from his country to visit Jewish state; will skip Ramallah

The Philippines’ controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, is due in Israel in early September, an Israeli official confirmed Tuesday.

Duterte, who once compared himself to Adolf Hitler, will become the first leader of the Philippines to visit the Jewish state.

Back in May 2017, Duterte, who has been widely criticized for mass extrajudicial killings, said he’d come to Israel, but the visit never materialized.

The Philippines is considered a relatively friendly country toward Israel. For instance, it abstained on a December 2017 vote in the United Nations General Assembly criticizing the US administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

According to unsubstantiated reports, Duterte is sympathetic to Israel’s wish for all countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem and is considering doing so.

In Israel Duterte will sign agreements about Philippine nationals who provide long-term care in the Jewish state, and combating drug trafficking, according to a report in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily. He and his Israeli interlocutors are expected to discuss establishing a direct flight route between Israel and the Philippines, agricultural cooperation and security deals.

He will reportedly not visit the Palestinian Authority.

While Duterte, who has been president since 2016, has been criticized for brutal policies on drug users and for offensive comments, including calling former US president Barack Obama a “son of a bitch,” Israel has maintained positive ties with Manila, continuing to sell it arms.

In a speech in 2016 at a synagogue in the Philippines, Duterte said he had instructed his national security adviser, retired general Hermogenes Esperson, to “not buy from anyone except from Israel.”

Duterte came to the synagogue in order to apologize for comments he had made the week before, comparing his desire to “slaughter” his country’s drug addicts with Hitler’s massacre of Jews.

“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” Duterte said in his hometown of Davao after returning from a visit to Vietnam on September 30.

Duterte said he apologized “profoundly” to the Jewish people, but maintained that he “will kill three million people.”

Critics have warned of extrajudicial killings and other widespread human rights abuses in the crackdown, with Amnesty International saying last year that Duterte may be guilty of crimes against humanity.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.