Malaca\u00f1ang described as \u201cmyopic and speculative\u201d the US Intelligence Community\u2019s Worldwide Threat Assessment report which included President Rodrigo Duterte in the roll of leaders who pose threat to the democracy and human rights in the Southeast Asian region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US intelligence community\u2019s assessment is myopic and speculative at best,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a lawyer, he knows the law, he wants to uphold the rule of law, he knows about the bill of rights,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The US intelligence community said “democracy and human rights in many Southeast Asian countries will remain fragile in 2018″ due to the inclination to uphold an autocratic style of ruling, corruption, and \u201ccronyism.”<\/p>\n
Roque downplayed this by saying, \u201cPresident Duterte is no autocrat or has no autocratic tendencies as he adheres to the rule of law and remains loyal to the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roque cited the freedom of the press and the\u00a0continued functioning of the judiciary and legislature to support his defense of the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn autocracy is not prevalent, as they would like everyone to believe.\u00a0\u00a0Our media are still able to broadcast and print what they want\u2013 \u2018fake news\u2019 included.\u00a0\u00a0Our judiciary and the courts are functioning as usual.\u00a0\u00a0Our legislature remains independent and basic services are still being delivered,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n
(DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 02\/22 \/18)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malaca\u00f1ang described as \u201cmyopic and speculative\u201d the US Intelligence Community\u2019s Worldwide Threat Assessment report which included President Rodrigo Duterte in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":114184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15359,11409,46987,46985],"class_list":["post-153795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","tag-harry-roque","tag-president-duterte","tag-us-intelligence-community","tag-worldwide-threat-assessment","mauthors-ro-angelica-equio","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}