'We are not butchers': Philippines defends drug war at Asian summit
VIENTIANE - The Philippines on Tuesday defended a surge in killings since Rodrigo Duterte became president over two months ago, handing out a 38-page pamphlet at a regional summit praising his campaign against illegal drugs in which thousands have died.
"We are not butchers who just kill people for no apparent reason," reads one page of the booklet, citing the Philippines' feisty national police chief, Ronald Dela Rosa.
The pamphlet was distributed at a Southeast Asian and East Asian summit in Laos that was overshadowed on Tuesday by the cancellation of a meeting between Duterte and Barack Obama after he referred to the US president as a "son of a bitch".
