Duterte misspoke when taking credit for mayor’s assassination attempt, spokesman says

A spokesperson for Rodrigo Duterte says the Philippine president misspoke when he said he had ordered the killing of a mayor in 2018, according to The New York Times.

“General Loot, you son of a bitch,” Duterte said in a speech Tuesday night, referencing Vicente Loot, mayor of the municipality of Daanbantayan, who survived a May 2018 attack by gunmen. “I ambushed you, you animal, and you still survived.”

{mosads}In a statement Wednesday, spokesman Salvador Panelo said Duterte meant to say “you were ambushed,” attributing his phrasing to the fact that Duterte is a native speaker of the Visayan language of the southern and central Philippines rather than the national Filipino language.

“It is silly and absurd to conclude that he is behind the ambush just because he misspeaks the Filipino language, which is not his native tongue or first language,” Panelo said, the Times reported.

Duterte was elected after campaigning on promises to kill drug dealers and addicts, and thousands of people, many suspected of using or dealing drugs, have been shot by police and private citizens in the last three years.

Loot was one of several mayors he accused of involvement in drug trafficking in a speech shortly after assuming office, according to the Times. Duterte has previously denied any role in the attack, in which Loot was unharmed but four others were wounded.

Filipino citizens have filed two complaints with the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of murder, with one filed by two men claiming to be former members of a death squad he led as mayor of the city of Davao.

Jude Sabio, an attorney for the men, said the comment Tuesday could be used as evidence against Duterte. “As a lawyer and a former prosecutor, he knows that admission is the queen of evidence,” Sabio said.