‘Racist remarks’ by the Prez

How interesting to read that President Duterte, while endorsing the spike in recent operations by the police against drug suspects, made another of his ad hominem attacks on one of his critics (“26 dead in Manila anticrime sweep,” Front Page, 8/18/17).

“A foolish mestizo” is what he called Commission on Human Rights chief Jose Luis Gascon. Is insulting Mr. Gascon for having Latino forebears acceptable?

This brings to mind another mestizo our President swore at not long ago: US President Barack Obama, who had a white mother.

One wonders how Mr. Duterte views those among us with Chinese and other non-Filipino antecedents. Is it all right for the leader of a country to make racist remarks with impunity, especially since columnist Rina Jimenez-David recently wrote forcefully about racism in America (Opinion, 8/16/17)?

Of course Mr. Duterte’s first wife, as well as their three children, are mestizos, but surely not of the “foolish” type, like the chief of the CHR.

ISABEL ESCODA, Cebu City