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Published May 10, 2021, 3:30 PM
Malacañang said President Duterte has nothing more to prove after Filipinos online called the Chief Executive a coward for backing from his challenge to Retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio to a debate on the West Philippine Sea issue.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque (ALBERT ALCAIN/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO/MANILA BULLETIN)
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque made the statement after the hashtag #DuterteDuwag (Duterte is a coward) trended on Twitter on Friday after Roque announced Duterte’s withdrawal from his challenge to the retired magistrate.
In his press briefing on Monday, Roque explained that President Duterte has shown the public his ability to debate when he ran for president in 2016.
Published May 10, 2021, 10:34 PM
After being ridiculed as a coward by Filipinos online, President Duterte said he was not afraid of retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and that he backed out of his debate challenge to him because he forgot that Carpio was not the president.
President Duterte (Malacañang Photo)
Duterte made the statement days after the hashtag #DuterteDuwag (Duterte is a coward) trended on Twitter on Friday after the announcement of the President’s withdrawal from his challenge to the retired magistrate to have a debate about the West Philippine Sea.
In his pre-recorded public address on Monday evening, the President said he forgot that he was the president and not Carpio when he posed his challenge to the latter.
US drive against China sharpens political tensions in the Philippines
Over the course of the last month, tensions have mounted sharply between the Philippines and China over the presence of Chinese vessels anchored in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. The tensions are finding open expression in Philippine politics, where the bourgeois opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte had gathered to form a coalition party, 1Sambayan, whose fundamental concern is to reorient Philippine foreign relations away from Beijing and back into the camp of Washington.
The heightened tensions first emerged over the announcement in late March, in the same week that 1Sambayan was founded, that Chinese vessels were anchored near Whitsun Reef, a feature of the South China Sea claimed by both countries. The Chinese government initially stated that the boats were fishing vessels sheltering in the boomerang shaped atoll from the brunt of a storm. While some vessels departed, others remained anchored