Manila,<\/p>\n
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is taking seriously the US Intelligence Community\u2019s report tagging the firebrand leader a threat to democracy in<\/p>\n
Southeast Asia, his spokesman said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, places Duterte alongside Cambodian\u2019s Hun Sen, the Rohingya crisis and Thailand\u2019s<\/p>\n
military-backed constitution as threats to democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe view this declaration from no less than the intelligence department of the United States with some concern…,\u201d presidential spokesman Harry Roque told<\/p>\n
DZMM radio.<\/p>\n
Roque rejected the US Intelligence assessment of Duterte as a threat to democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not think that\u2019s true. He is a lawyer, he knows the law, he wants to uphold the rule of law, he knows about the bill of rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Democracy and human rights in many Southeast Asian nations will remain fragile in 2018 because of autocratic tendencies, rampant corruption and cronyism,<\/p>\n
the US Intelligence Community said in its Worldwide Threat Assessment report dated February.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Philippines, President Duterte will continue to wage his signature campaign against drugs, corruption, and crime,\u201d the report read, adding that Duterte has<\/p>\n
suggested he could suspend the constitution and declare a revolutionary government.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time the United States has criticised Duterte, who is notorious for his defiance of international pressure. Duterte was infuriated by<\/p>\n
expressions of concern by former President Barack Obama\u2019s administration about drug-war killings in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
More than 4,000 people have been killed in what police call legitimate operations against suspected drug dealers and users under the Duterte\u2019s signature war<\/p>\n
on drugs since July 2016.<\/p>\n
Rights group accused police of summary executions, which authorities refute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manila, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is taking seriously the US Intelligence Community\u2019s report tagging the firebrand leader a threat to democracy in Southeast Asia, his spokesman said on Wednesday. The report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, places Duterte alongside Cambodian\u2019s Hun Sen, the Rohingya crisis and Thailand\u2019s military-backed constitution as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22594,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22592\/revisions\/22594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}