Malacañang on Wednesday slammed the Washington Post, saying the leakage of US President Donald Trump's private conversations with world leaders, including with President Rodrigo Duterte, is “simply outlandish.”
This came after the paper reported on Oct. 8 that Trump’s phone call to Duterte in 2017 congratulating the latter for an “unbelievable job on the drug problem” was among the calls that “genuinely horrified” the White House staff.
“The fact that President Trump's private conversations with world leaders are leaked freely to the press by unnamed sources is simply outlandish,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said.
In April 2017, Trump called Duterte and lauded his anti-drug campaign which has claimed the lives of thousands of drug suspects in both police operations and vigilante-style killings.
Panelo also said the article “shows negative bias” against Trump and Duterte’s anti-narcotics crackdown.
“It violates the objectivity principle we expect from high-caliber journalists of The Washington Post,” Panelo said.
“The anonymous staff interviewed is simply in the dark exhibiting his zero inside knowledge on the Philippines' campaign against illegal drugs,” he added.