Duterte: Angara is my defender against EU
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday paid his last respects to the late Senate President Edgardo Angara, remembering him as his “defender” before the European Union.
Angara was the chief executive’s special envoy to the EU.
“He is the defender of my mouth before the EU. The white people and I cannot understand each other,” Duterte said in Filipino in an interview at the wake of Angara early Tuesday morning.
Duterte said Angara possesses the qualities fit for a diplomat.
“Senator Ed Angara is a humble, quiet person. He is really fit to be a diplomat. I can never be one ever,” the president said.
Angara’s appointment in May 2017 came amid Duterte’s criticism of the EU for supposedly meddling in his war on illegal drugs. The president, in several speeches, had repeatedly berated the EU and accused the bloc of hypocrisy and interference.
EU Ambassador Franz Jessen called Angara a “great patriot and true friend of the EU.”
READ: Diplomats mourn Edgardo Angara's passing
The former senator passed away on Sunday morning due to an apparent heart attack. He was 83.
Angara was a senator from 2001 to 2013 and was agriculture secretary (1999) and then executive secretary (2001) to President Joseph Ejercito Estrada.
The elder Angara ran for vice president in 1998 but lost to Sen. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who would become president in 2001.
He was also a senator from 1987 to 1998 and was Senate president from 1993 to 1995.
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