Duterte on visit to Holocaust memorial: I can’t imagine country obeying “insane leader”

September 4, 2018

President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday it is unimaginable for a country to obey an "insane leader."

Duterte made the statement during his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center, which is dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims in Israel.

"Me, I realized that war is insanity. And what happened here, in Europe especially under the Nazi. I could not imagine of a country obey an insane leader," he said.

"And I could not ever fathom the spectacle of a human being going into a killing spree, murdering old men, women, men, children, mother," Duterte added.

Duterte's remark came as he has been also criticized in the Philippines and abroad for his war on drugs where thousands of people allegedly involved in narcotics have been killed.

His bloody war on drugs and other policies have prompted other people, such as his former friend, Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines to call him "crazy."

Last March, United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, suggested that Duterte might need to get a psychiatric evaluation after the government included a UN human rights investigator on a list of 600 people declared as communist terrorists.

Duterte expressed hope that the Holocaust would not happen again.

"We have learned so much along the years during the two wars. There is always a lesson to be learned and that despots and leaders who show insanity should be — well they should be disposed of at the first instance," he said.

"I would like to say that we are one in saying that it will not happen again and my country will be the first to voice such I said a massacre of a race just because of hate," Duterte added.

Duterte, in his message on the guest book that he signed in Yad Vashem, expressed hope that the "minds of all men and women learn to work together towards providing a safe haven for all who are being persecuted.

" Celerina Monte/DMS