President Rodrigo Duterte is photographed upon his arrival at Jolo Airport, before heading to Camp Bud Datu in Indanan, Sulu on July 15, 2019. (Ace Morandante/Presidential Photo)

President Rodrigo Duterte is “seriously considering” cutting diplomatic relations with Iceland, which introduced the resolution calling on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate and report on mounting deaths in the Philippines’ war on drugs, Malacañang said on Monday night.

“He is seriously considering cutting diplomatic relations with Iceland. The adopted Iceland resolution is grotesquely one-sided, outrageously narrow, and maliciously partisan. It reeks of nauseating politics completely devoid of respect for the sovereignty of our country. It is bereft of the gruesome realities of the drug menace in the country,” said Duterte’s spokesman, Salvador Panelo.

Panelo, in a statement sent to reporters, claimed Iceland’s resolution, approved by the rights council in a narrow vote last week, smacked of politics and was “designed to force our free state to be subservient to their imagined superiority.”

“It is based on false information and unverified facts and figures. The resolution likewise demonstrates how the Western powers are scornful of our sovereign exercise of protecting our people from the scourge of prohibited drugs that threaten to destroy the fabric of our society. Their intrusive abuse is patent and condemnable,” he said.

“Evidently, the resolution was designed to embarrass the Philippines before the international community and the global audience,” he added.

Manila and Reykjavik established diplomatic relations on Feb. 24, 1999. Iceland had invested on Biliran Geothermal, under a joint venture between Filtech Energy Drilling and ORKA Energy, an Icelandic geothermal development firm.

Panelo earlier on Monday said cutting ties with Iceland, first raised by Sen. Imee Marcos, was “not a bad idea.”

On Twitter, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. clarified that he did not want to sever diplomatic relations with Iceland.

“I never considered for a second cutting any ties over this small matter,” he wrote.

He also clarified that the Philippines would not bolt the UNHRC, in reaction to a statement from Senate President Vicente Sotto III.

“I already said no. We need to stay to educate the races that don’t shower daily,” he tweeted. (PressONE.ph)