Palace slams UN rights chief’s ‘uncalled for’ remarks against Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang on Saturday slammed the United Nations human rights chief for his “uncalled for” remarks urging President Rodrigo Duterte, who has launched verbal attacks against UN rapporteurs, to seek “psychiatric evaluation.”

Citing Duterte’s profanity-laced diatribes against the UN and its officials, rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said "it makes one believe that the president of the Philippines needs to submit himself to some sort of psychiatric evaluation."

In response, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Zeid’s statement was an “affront on the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines.”

Roque also urged the UN rights official to respect Philippine democracy, adding that the remarks were perhaps made by Zeid because “they do not have democracy in his home state of Jordan.”

Zeid is a Jordanian prince and former diplomat who served as a UN political officer during the Bosnian war.

“I'm very tempted to respond in similar language but I have opted to restrain myself, opting not to respond in the same ad hominem used by the UN High Commissioner,” Roque told a press conference.

“Your language was not just an insult to the Philippines and the Filipino people; it is an insult to all countries who have democratically elected their heads of states,” he added.

Duterte, who is notorious for his defiance of international pressure, was elected by a landslide in 2016 on a brutal law and order platform.

Human rights monitors say most of the fatalities in the war on drugs are extrajudicial killings committed by cops, adding that Duterte could be liable for crimes against humanity for giving police the "license to kill."

In a recent speech, Duterte told elite armed police units to dodge  any drug war probe by UN rapporteurs, who he slammed for supposedly interfering in the way he runs his country.

Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, has become a target of Duterte’s vitriol over her criticism of his signature drug war.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government recently filed a petition in a Manila court seeking to declare 600 alleged communist insurgents, including a Filipina UN special rapporteur, as “terrorists.”

"These attacks cannot go unanswered," Zeid was quoted as saying in a report by the Agence France-Presse.