New Delhi: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte Tuesday threatened his citizens with jail time if they refused to get vaccinated, adding that those who don’t should leave the country and go to India or the US.
“Go to India if you want or somewhere, to America. But for as long as you are here and you are a human being, and can carry the virus, get vaccinated,” the president said during a televised address, following reports of low turnout at several vaccination sites in the capital Manila.
The Philippines has recorded over 13 lakh cases as of 20 June. Only 2 per cent of the country’s total population has been fully vaccinated so far, according to Our World In Data.
During his remarks, Duterte said people who refuse to get their shots will be subjected to prison cells that are “filthy and foul smelling” or will be injected with ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug used on animals.
President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to jail people who refuse to be vaccinated against the coronavirus as the Philippines battles one of Asia's worst outbreaks, with over 1.3 million cases and more than 23,000 deaths https://t.co/kIg5UjAYcG pic.twitter.com/pwAePiAUCZ
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 22, 2021
Ahead of the enforcement of safety protocols on 1 June, Philippines’ Departments of Justice and Interior and Local Government remarked that the government will need to prepare detention spaces “because there may be a large number of people detained than before”.
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Other controversies
The Philippines president has courted controversy in the past too for his statements.
In September 2016, he called the then US President Barack Obama a “son of a whore” in response to Obama’s promise to raise the issue of drug-related extra-judicial killings in the Philippines at a meeting. Obama cancelled the meeting following Duterte’s remarks.
That same year, Duterte compared himself to Adolf Hitler, saying he would be “happy to slaughter” millions of drug addicts as part of his war on crime and drugs.
In his latest televised address Tuesday, he criticised the International Criminal Court after one of its prosecutors requested a full inquiry into thousands of killings by police in a war on drugs ordered by Duterte.
In late 2016, he threatened corrupt government officials with being thrown out of a helicopter, warning that he did it before and would do it again. “If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out. I have done this before, why would I not do it again?” Duterte was quoted as saying.
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