Philippines President Says He Regrets Calling Obama a ‘Son of a Whore’

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gave a statement on Tuesday which said he regrets the profane language he used in comments about President Obama before the cancellation of their joint meeting.

Duterte has been turning heads for months over his administration’s extrajudicial actions against drug crime, and he promised to call Obama a “son of a whore” if he was confronted about that at a conference in Laos. Obama shrugged off the remarks while speaking yesterday in China, and today, Duterte’s spokesman issued a response that comes as an unusual break from the brash style of the Filipino leader.

“While the immediate cause was my strong comments to certain press questions that elicited concern and distress, we also regret it came across as a personal attack on the US president,” the statement reads, according to Fox. “Our primary intention is to chart an independent foreign policy while promoting closer ties with all nations, especially the US with which we had had a longstanding partnership.”

Spokesman Ernesto Abella said that the meeting cancellation was a mutual agreement, and that it would be postponed for a later date. He also expressed hope that the eventual meeting would give both nations a chance to address each other on human rights and their respective approaches for tackling drug crime.

Watch Abella’s statement above, via NBC.

[Image via wikimedia]

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