Duterte to get honorary degree from Russian university

DUBAI — President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to receive an honorary doctorate degree from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations a month after he declined a similar degree from the University of the Philippines.

 

The MGIMO will confer an honorary doctorate on Duterte on Wednesday, the second day of his four-day official visit to Moscow, a schedule released by Malacañang showed.

 

It will be the first honorary degree to be given to Duterte as president.

 

After the conferment ceremony, Duterte will deliver a policy speech and hold a dialogue with students of the university. The president will also witness the donation of books to the MGIMO library.

 

In its website, the MGIMO said it has granted honorary doctorate degrees to prominent foreign politicians, public experts, diplomats and scholars working in the field of international relations and foreign policy.

 

Other prominent personalities who were given the degree include former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, who now serves as Duterte’s adviser; former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has expressed concerns over the human rights situation in the Philippines under Duterte; former France Presidents Nikolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac; international financier and philanthropist George Soros; former Indonesia President Megawati Sukarnoputri; and former Japan prime minister Yoshiro Mori.

 

Last month, Duterte declined the honorary doctorate offered by UP, saying he does not accept awards “as a matter of personal and official policy.”

 

“With due respect to the University of the Philippines, I do not accept (awards). Even when I was mayor, I do not accept (awards),” the president said in an interview in Bohol on April 19.

 

“Wala sa pagkatao ko (It goes against my personality),” he added.

 

UP had offered to confer an honorary doctor of laws degree to the president “in keeping with the tradition” of the state-run university, the Commission on Higher Education said.

 

Some UP alumni were opposed to the offer, saying Duterte does not deserve the degree because of the supposed extrajudicial killings and human rights violations under his watch.

 

Duterte’s predecessor, former President Benigno Aquino III, accepted the honorary degree in 2011 and delivered an address during the graduation at UP Diliman in the same year.

 

Former Presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also declined the UP honorary degree but agreed to speak during UP graduation ceremonies.