Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte may contain his signature colorful language when he arrives in Singapore for a two-day state visit on Thursday.
Like the US, Pope Francis and countless others, the Southeast Asian nation has also been a victim of the President’s verbal tirades. Last year, the 71-year old recalled how he burned a Singapore flag in 1995 to protest against the execution of a Filipina maid.
“F*** you…You are a garrison pretending to be a country,” he said in a Nov. 2015 speech, referring to the city-state.
Singapore doesn’t take too kindly to insults. In the past, the country’s leaders have sued and won damages or out-of-court settlements from foreign publications, including the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Economist, for defamatory allegations.
Duterte, who met with Cambodia’s government earlier this week, isn’t expected to apologise for his remarks, but he may be extra-cautious on this trip.
“I expect him to be on his best behaviour in Singapore,” said Murray Hiebert, Southeast Asia specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Read also: 10 of Philippines’ President Duterte’s most undiplomatic remarks
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Duterte in China to promote economic ties
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The bilateral visit is aimed at expanding business ties, deepening defence and security co-operation as well as discussing key issues facing the region, so “having fruitful discussions in these areas will require that he not set his interlocutor teeth on edge with abusive name calling,” Hiebert added.
Duterte will also be holding a session with Singapore’s Filipino residents on Friday, a common practice of his when travelling abroad. There were an estimated 140,000 Filipino workers in Singapore last year, according to Philippine statistics, many of whom are employed as domestic helpers.
Cases of maid abuse are all too frequent in the nation-in March, a Singaporean couple faced charges of failing to adequately feed their Filipina maid-and given Duterte’s remarks in the past, it’s a topic he may raise.
Though the President tends to be the most colorful on his overseas trips, especially when giving speeches to overseas Filipino workers, it’s unlikely he will mar his first visit to Singapore by controversial tirades against the island-nation, noted Malcolm Cook, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a think-tank specialising in Southeast Asia.
While the President has attracted criticism overseas-human rights activists have accused him of state abuse over the extrajudicial killings from his narcotics crackdown-he remains immensely popular among Filipinos, who praise him for tackling a key source of crime and violence. Nearly 6,000 have died since the war on drugs began in July, out of which 3,841 were vigilante-style killings, according to new Philippine police data on Monday.
With no concrete deals expected on this Singapore trip, foreign policy could feature prominently on the agenda.
“Singapore will likely be very interested in Duterte’s policy, particularly towards the US and China,” said Cook, referring to the Philippine leader’s efforts to distance himself from Washington and cosy up to Beijing.
The Philippines will also be chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc next year, followed by Singapore in 2018, so discussions on regional diplomacy are also likely.
“Presumably, there are concerns in the region of a more inward-looking US foreign policy in the coming years under President-elect Trump, so leaders may prioritize strengthening defence ties,” explained Kevin McGahan, political science lecturer at National University of Singapore.
