MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to remove the vice president from her "drugs tsar" post if she shared state secrets with foreign individuals and entities. The warning, which the president made in a television interview, came a few days after he offered Leni Robredo a lead role in his brutal war on drugs, which she later accepted to reassess a campaign she said was fraught with senseless killings. Robredo, a political rival of the popular Duterte, told Reuters on Oct. 23 that international help, including from the United Nations and International Criminal Court (ICC), should be sought if the government refused to change tack and stop abusive police. "Revealing State secrets to foreign individuals and entities as well as welcoming those who have trampled the country's sovereignty would be damaging to the welfare of the Filipino people," presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement on Sunday.

Source: International New York Times November 17, 2019 07:30 UTC