<![CDATA[Back Hitler, bash Mao: the tweets of Philippine foreign secretary Teddy Locsin make Trump look diplomatic]>

He called an archbishop a "moron in a white mu-mu", and addressed the vice-president as "hey, stupid". He messaged a reporter, "did you get my f*** you?" And in Berlin last year he refused to take back statements endorsing Hitler and the Holocaust.

Foreign secretary Teodoro "Teddy Boy" Locsin Jr, the Philippines' top diplomat, is not famed for his diplomacy.

"Compared to other [foreign secretaries], he's more aggressive in his tone, in language, maybe in his ideas," said retired ambassador Lauro Baja, who was twice president of the United Nations Security Council.

Locsin swept back into the news this month when he confronted a small group of militant protesters outside the foreign affairs headquarters who were protesting against sending Filipino soldiers to the Middle East. An apoplectic Locsin waded in, yelling at them, and when they ignored him, making faces and inviting them to beat him up.

But that was just the latest colourful incident involving Locsin, 71, a lawyer who has had roles as a presidential speech-writer, information minister, newspaper publisher, congressman and TV commentator before he was appointed foreign minister in 2018 by President Rodrigo Duterte.

"When I took my oath", Locsin recalled in a television show last year, "I looked at him [Duterte] and said, 'any instructions?' and he said, 'no, I just gave you the ball, play with it'."

The position makes Locsin a key figure in implementing Duterte's much publicised pivot to China away from the Philippines' traditional ally, the United States.

Locsin claimed "the Chinese like dealing with me because they like order".

A Tweet by Locsin. Image: Twitter alt=A Tweet by Locsin. Image: Twitter

But under him, relations with the US haven't actually deteriorated: no treaties have been abrogated and the Philippines continues to hold defence exercises with US forces. And Locsin hasn't hesitated to be blunt, pointing out last year that none of the deals the Philippines has signed with China have materialised.

Ties with the European Union are more chilly: last year, some of its member states voted to investigate the Duterte government's human rights record. In a tweet, Locsin said these members were in the payroll of drug cartels. Angered by the vote, the Philippines cut off all EU aid programmes.

A diplomatic source who follows EU matters told the South China Morning Post that, right now, Locsin wasn't the obstacle to restoring those programmes; the official making difficulties was finance secretary Carlos Dominguez.

For now though, Locsin's work as a foreign secretary isn't proving to be memorable as his social media tirades. Like Donald Trump, Locsin spends a lot of time tweeting on any topic, replying to anyone, and his posts are as unfiltered as the US president's " streaked with crudeness, arrogance, condescension, homophobia, profanity and violence.

Three months ago, when Davao archbishop Romulo Valles called for prayers for oppositionist vice-president Leni Robredo who was supposed to be tapped as an anti-drugs "tsar", Locsin called Valles a "moron in a white Mu-Mu" and asked him, "how did you pass theology?" He deleted the tweet.

Last June, when Robredo criticised the foreign affairs department for cancelling courtesy diplomatic passports issued to former diplomats, Locsin tweeted her an all caps message that began with "HEY, BOBA [stupid]" and called for somebody "to give her a brain". He apologised.

Philippines' Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin Jr with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Locsin has claimed 'the Chinese like dealing with me because they like order'. Photo: AFP alt=Philippines' Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin Jr with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Locsin has claimed 'the Chinese like dealing with me because they like order'. Photo: AFP

When the press raised questions about the costs of a ceremonial cauldron for the 2019 Southeast Asian games, he tweeted that he wanted media "to be dropped in the cauldron by chopper so they can light it with a match. We will be able to tell from the screams if the fire is real".

"He's like someone itching for a fight," said veteran journalist Vergel Santos, who has been the editor or publisher of several daily newspapers. "He's pugnacious, bellicose, warlike, abrasive."

Locsin's tweets have been condemned and deplored by numerous groups " Human Rights Watch called his crack against the UN Human Rights Council "outrageous and malicious" " but he keeps them coming. In November, he called the Philippine Commission on Human Rights "homos". He made passing reference to "Europeans who don't shower daily."

The foreign secretary, himself the son of a famously blunt and outspoken magazine publisher, has a long history being provocative and offensive. Decades ago, long before the internet, he wrote a newspaper column in which he described Malaysians as monkeys "beating their furry little chests".

In 2016, before joining Duterte's government as the UN representative, he tweeted several endorsements of Hitler's genocidal policies. One of them said, "I believe that the Drug Menace is so big it needs a FINAL SOLUTION like the Nazis adopted. NO REHAB." He also said there were some things "Hitler did right" and the Philippines' drug problem needed a "final solution a la Auschwitz".

When Locsin visited Berlin last year, a German reporter asked him about these tweets, as well as Duterte's own comments likening himself to Hitler. Locsin refused to disown or apologise for the statements, and when they were reported in the media, the German Foreign Office summoned the Philippine charge d'affaires to explain Locsin's "totally unacceptable comments".

Mao's portrait at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Even Mao hasn't escaped Locsin's acid tongue. Photo: Simon Song alt=Mao's portrait at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Even Mao hasn't escaped Locsin's acid tongue. Photo: Simon Song

And last October, Locsin tweeted an apology to China for having referred to Mao Zedong as Mao Che Tutung (a pun on the Tagalog word tutong, burnt rice in the bottom of a pot)

Some people who've met him have said that in person, Locsin is not like his Twitter persona. "When you're face to face with him in a friendly atmosphere, his Twitter personality does not appear ... he's very polite and civil and kind to me", former ambassador Baja told the South China Morning Post.

Locsin himself told one reporter that his personality seemed to change when he's on Twitter. At one point, in 2016, his daughter deleted the Twitter app from his iPhone, but he managed to use an old laptop to narrate: "Ok, my daughters called to say: stay out of Twitter."

He didn't follow their advice: his account currently has 248,000 tweets and 655,000 followers (he joined Twitter in 2011). And this week, with his clash with the militants outside the foreign affairs headquarters, Locsin showed that his virtual personality might not be that different from his actual one. While he eventually calmed down enough to have a serious discussion, the encounter produced videos and photos of him looking less than dignified. Baja said it was the first time he'd ever heard of a foreign affairs secretary confronting demonstrators that way.

According to Santos, "even the dictator Ferdinand Marcos would not have a foreign secretary doing anything like that, he was concerned about his image".

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.