Duterte ally demands apology from New York Times

Nograles

MANILA — Now, it’s the New York Times destabilizing the Duterte government.

An ally of President Duterte on Thursday demanded an apology from the US publication for its profile of the Philippine leader, which he described as an attempt to “destabilize and topple down the government.”

Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles, chair of the powerful appropriations committee in the House of Representatives, said the Times article titled “The Making of a Strongman” and written by contributor Richard Paddock was a desperate attempt to take down the President.

“New York Times owes our country, our people and our President an explanation and an apology,” he said in a statement Thursday.

“The spin doctors are on overtime to put in disrepute the President of our republic in a desperate attempt to take over. They are going international because they know that our people know better and nobody would believe them,” Nograles said.

“They are so desperate that they are not even subtle in making their intentions known,” he added.

“Imagine a story printed on an American broadsheet reprinted verbatim by Philippine newspapers on the same day,” Nograles said. The Inquirer published the New York Times story as its banner story on Thursday (Mar. 23, 2017).

Nograles described the story, which traced Duterte’s life and career from his childhood to his ascent to the presidency, was “nothing more than a rebooted, rehashed, exaggerated remake of a movie script.”

“This is obviously a calibrated and calculated move by enemies of the State to force themselves into power in an undemocratic manner. Only rich and powerful enemies have the means to operate in this manner,” he said.

Nograles said the details in the story were all “obviously fed” by detractors of Duterte “and not on real and objective research which is expected from hard-nosed journalists.”/Inquirer.net