Impeach me, I’ll jail you — Duterte threatens opponents

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened opponents with prison if they try to impeach him, the latest in what a top UN official and an Asian lawmakers’ group this week called a pattern of persecution and assaults on free speech.

Duterte vented his anger late on Thursday amid intense media scrutiny and accusations that he is siding with China over a June 9 sinking of a Filipino fishing boat by a Chinese vessel, which happened inside Manila’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The maverick leader has echoed Beijing’s line that it was an accident, not an intentional ramming, and shrugged off the presence of Chinese fishermen inside the Philippine EEZ, saying he would allow it out of friendship.

Some high-profile critics, among them a top judge and a former foreign minister, have called that a breach of the constitution, or worthy of his impeachment.“Me? Will be impeached? I will jail them all,” Duterte told reporters. “Try to do it and I will do it. Son of a bitch.”

He added: “I am challenging you to do it. You really want to force my hand into it? Okay. You sons of bitches, do it. Yes. File it.”A report on Tuesday by the Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights chided the Duterte administration for what it said were threats and aggressive rhetoric and trumped-up criminal charges against opponents that amounted to “deliberate effort to muzzle critics and weaken checks and balances.”