The Philippines’ New UN Ambassador Is An Absolute Mess On Twitter
The former journalist and congressman has defended Nazis and repeatedly had his phone taken away from him by his daughter to halt the stream of tweets.
Meet Teodoro (Teddy) Locsin Jr, the new ambassador to the UN from the Philippines. Since he was appointed last month, Locsin’s Twitter history, in all its undiplomatic finery, has been put under the microscope.
Bullit Marquez / AP
Locsin, a former journalist and congressman, was named to the spot on Sept. 18. He’s pictured here on the right. His appointment was met with … some surprise in the Philippines.
The surprise came from the fact that Locsin has developed a reputation for being less than diplomatic — especially online.
NB: He retweeted this meme from conservative actor James Woods just a day after it was announced that he’d be going to the UN to represent the Philippines.
Locsin isn’t set to take over the ambassadorship until next year and is still on TV presenting his “Teditorial” opinion segments.
@inquirerdotnet @TarraINQ Ah, shut the fuck up. I set the parameters in my Teditorial yesterday and those are final.
He’s also apparently a fan of President Rodrigo Duterte’s current crackdown on drug traffickers and users — one that has resulted in the death of more than 2,500 people throughout the country.
Yo:If you can’t do what you committed to do in your own committed deadline, there’s no point in asking for the same interval.
@marocharim @pinoymommy Leave him alone, shut the fuck up & he will permanently cure 100,000 of drug problem. The stench will be awful but…
A set of tweets from this summer about the vigilantism Duterte has inspired got new scrutiny last week after the president actually compared himself to Hitler.
“I believe that the Drug Menace is so big it needs a FINAL SOLUTION like the Nazis adopted. That I believe. NO REHAB,” he tweeted out among a string of others that made reference to the Holocaust.
Locsin, who says that he’s partially Jewish, later explained to CNN Philippines that his tweets were all for shock value and mostly an inside joke with a friend of his who works in what CNN Philippines referred to as “the Jewish government district.”
“[My friend] said, boy, they really run me ragged here. You know, they said, ‘Hitler’s not all wrong.’ I died laughing when he said that,” Locsin told CNN Philippines.
!["[My friend] said, boy, they really run me ragged here. You know, they said, 'Hitler's not all wrong.' I died laughing when he said that," Locsin told CNN Philippines.](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-10/6/17/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane01/sub-buzz-25579-1475789877-5.jpg?resize=625:604)
“I’ve never been anti-Semitic. Well, if they want to interpret it that way, then they are perfectly free to remain in their ignorance.”
But then last week, he had a bit of fun on Twitter sticking up for the Nazis. The actual Nazis.
You know, as you do.
(Another strike against him: he’s also apparently one of those terrible people who respond to the “History in Pictures” Twitter account and others like it.)
A pickup truck flees from the pyroclastic flows from the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, 1991.pic.twitter.com/bHwWtgWCO0
@HistoryInPix @mlq3 That, not so much the Senate vote and the awful bungling of an American Embassy bitch, drove away the US bases.
It got to the point that Locsin’s daughter, who set up the account for him, allegedly banned him from the service.
That hasn’t stopped the spread of a Change.org petition calling on the United Nations to reject him from his post due to the nature of his tweets. So far, 10,000 people have signed on.
“For now, the issue of credentials is in the hands of the Philippines Mission,” UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said in an email, when asked about the petition. The Filipino Mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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