No contradiction in Rody-Bishop meet, Palace says

MANILA, Philippines - President Duterte and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop did not discuss human rights issues during their recent meeting in Davao City, Malacañang said yesterday.

“There was no contradiction between the Australian official and the Philippine President, just a difference in perspective,” presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said.

They had a constructive discussion on how to deal with illegal drugs and other common areas of cooperation between Australia and the Philippines, Abella added.

The Palace issued the statement after Bishop said she and Duterte discussed human rights and the country’s anti-drug campaign when she visited Davao last week.

“During my conversation with President Duterte, we discussed the country’s anti-drug campaign at length,” Bishop said in a statement to Fairfax Media and published by the Sydney Morning Herald.

“I conveyed Australian and international concerns with respect to extrajudicial killings and spoke of the importance we attach to human rights and the rule of law,” Bishop said.

But Duterte said otherwise, as he praised Bishop for not raising the issue of human rights or the thousands of Filipinos killed in the government’s anti-drug war.

In his speech before he left for Myanmar and Thailand on Sunday, Duterte said the issue of human rights was not raised during his meeting with Bishop.

Duterte said his penchant for cursing might have made any official think twice before bringing up the issue on human rights during meetings.

“We never discussed human rights. They are so courteous. Maybe alam nila (they know). Because if you say that, if you utter those things in my presence, you’ll get an insult. So what we did was to discuss transnational crimes, terrorism,” Duterte said.

“Nobody but nobody, not even the United States, ever opened up the human rights issue in front of me,” he added.

Abella said the President and Bishop’s meeting was focused on possible areas of cooperation on the war against illegal drugs.

He said the meeting was successful and affirmed the growing Philippines-Australia relations.