It's time to stop patronizing the president and people of the Philippines

Speaking down to the people and their president accomplishes nothing.

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte had a response for the European Union who told him how to run his country. The European Union has expressed concern over extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - President Duterte has drawn international criticism for his open season on drug traffickers and dealers. The EU issued a statement asking President Duterte to end the killings and to bring his nation's policy into line with international human rights laws.

However, others are critical of this request. After all, drug dealers don't care for human rights.

President Duterte replied to the EU request by saying, "I read the condemnation of the EU against me. I will tell them: F*** you. You're doing it in atonement for your sins."

President Duterte accused the EU of hypocrisy, given Europe's history of incredible human rights violations.

"And then the EU has the gall to condemn me. I repeat: F**** you."

About 2,400 people have been killed in the past two months alone for their suspected involvement in drug activities. In particular, drug gangs are fighting for survival against police. President Obama was also critical of President Duterte's policies, to which Duterte reminded Obama that the Philippines was no longer a colony of the USA.

For its part, the Church has also criticized and condemned the killings.

Yet President Duterte is right. The Philippines is an independent country, not a colony of the EU or USA. It is the people of that country, and nobody else who have the right to say how the country should be run. If the people want street justice to bring a national crime epidemic under control, then they will have it. And if they believe the force used by police and vigilantes is too much, the people have ways of dealing with that too.

Nobody thinks killing is a good thing, but that isn't the issue. The problem is that outsiders continue to address President Duterte and the Philippine people as if they were inferior. Then, when President Duterte reminds these people that his country is a sovereign, independent state that owes nothing to anyone, and demands the Philippine people be treated with respect, world leaders become upset.

Obama cancelled a meeting with Duterte following their last exchange of words.

If the world wants to communicate with the people and president of the Philippines, then it must first give these people the respect they deserve. How many nations have offered to support President Duterte? How many nations are making the situation in the Philippines worse by demonstrating systematic disrespect? It is the United States that maintains a military base in the Philippines, something the people there do not want. How many bases does the Philippines have in America? How many Philippine citizens run riot through American towns on the weekends?

The Philippine people must be treated as equals by the international community. If we want them to change something, then we should ask how we can help. Only when we have re-earned their respect can we afford to suggest an opinion. And only then will they be interested in what we have to say.

But Europe, and the United States, both with long histories of systematic abuse of their own people and plenty of extrajudicial killings of their own, have no right to address the President of  the Philippines with disrespect.

Certainly, any killing is terrible, but the right to judge belongs to the people of the Philippines and God, not Obama or the EU.

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