Does this right a wrong? Nuh-uh.
Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella clarified that president Rodrigo Duterte’s slur against US ambassador Philip Goldberg was “first and foremost, not meant to be a public statement.” He added that the comments were directed and confined to a certain audience.”
Too bad Duterte’s speech before soldiers in Cebu City on Aug 5, where he called Goldberg “bakla” (gay) and “bwisit” (nuisance), was broadcast live on state-run television and radio stations, huh?
In any case, if Philippine Star columnist Babe Romualdez’s theory is to be believed, Goldberg is just a stand-in for Duterte’s real target — the United States goverment.
President Duterte has an axe to grind with the US because of something that happened 14 years ago and “this hostility has been carried over to the outgoing US Ambassador,” he wrote.
In 2002, there was a mysterious explosion in the Evergreen Hotel in Davao City. The suspect, British-American Terrence Michael Meiring, was charged with possession of explosives but managed to disappear from his hospital room despite severe injuries, “supposedly spirited away by the CIA.”
The 60-year-old oncologist reportedly ended up in the custody of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Miering suffered third-degree burns and had his legs amputated when dynamite he allegedly kept inside his room at the Evergreen Hotel exploded on May 16,” Philippine Star reported in 2002.
