Recently inaugurated Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is "expressing regret" for his comments at a fiery press conference, in which he called President Obama a "son of a bitch" or "son of a whore" (depending on how you translate the Tagalog) and threatened to swear at him in a planned bilateral meeting.
The White House canceled the meeting shortly after Duterte's comments.
"We ... regret [the remarks] came across as a personal attack on the U.S. president," Duterte's office said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The U.S. has been critical of Duterte's human rights record in his scant two months as president. At issue are the estimated 2,400 killings conducted by police and vigilantes since Duterte was inaugurated June 30. He ran on a pledge to rid the Philippines of drug trafficking, and once he took office began a campaign in which thousands were rounded up and killed without due process. Some of the victims were tangentially related to the drug trade — or just at the wrong place at the wrong time — including a 5-year-old killed in the roundups.
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