VIENTIANE- Sept 6 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama canceled what would have been his first meeting with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, after Duterte described Obama in vulgar terms, a White House spokesman said on Tuesday.

Obama, who is in Laos for meetings with South Asian leaders, instead will meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, said Ned Price, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.</s>VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte defiantly reaffirmed his controversial campaign against illegal substances Tuesday and called for a redoubling of crime-fighting efforts across Southeast Asia as he prepared to face two prominent critics of his policy: President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“We shall not be cowed. We must press on,” he declared in a speech at a business and investment conference on the sidelines of a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which he is attending. He called for increased use of intelligence gathering and more arrests.

Duterte also threatened earlier to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations over criticism of his crackdown on illegal substances that has led to a wave of extrajudicial killings. More than 2,000 people have been killed since June 30, when he took office after winning election on a promise to fight crime and corruption.

The summit has been overshadowed by Obama’s canceling of a meeting with Duterte after the latter warned him not to ask about the killings and used profane language when discussing Obama.

On Wednesday, Duterte is to attend a gala dinner with both Obama and Ban, as well as join a meeting that the two leaders will have with ASEAN heads of state and government.

Earlier Tuesday, Duterte expressed regret over his remarks about Obama.</s>Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday expressed regret over his “son of a bitch” remark while referring to President Barack Obama.

In a statement read out by his spokesman, Duterte said his “strong comments” to certain questions by a reporter “elicited concern and distress, we also regret it came across as a personal attack on the U.S. president.”

Duterte made the remarks Monday before flying to Laos, where he will attend a regional summit. He had been scheduled to meet Obama separately. But Obama indicated that he was having second thoughts about that meeting.

Duterte said both sides mutually agreed to postpone the meeting.

Even though Duterte’s latest comment does not amount to an apology, the expression of regret is a rare instance when the tough-talking former mayor has expressed contrition for his remarks that often slide into profanity.

“We look forward to ironing out differences arising out of national priorities and perceptions, and working in mutually responsible ways for both countries,” the statement said.

The flap over Duterte’s remarks started when a reporter asked him how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers to Obama. More than 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.

In his typical foul-mouthed style, Duterte responded: “I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum,” he said, using the Tagalog phrase for “son of a bitch.”

Duterte has earlier cursed the pope and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“Who is he (Obama) to confront me?” Duterte said, adding the Philippines had not received an apology from the United States for misdeeds committed during its colonization of the Philippines.

He pointed to the killing of Muslim Moros more than a century ago during a U.S. pacification campaign in the southern Philippines, blaming the wounds of the past as “the reason why (the south) continues to boil” with separatist insurgencies.

Last week, Duterte said he was ready to defend his bloody crackdown on illegal drugs, which has sparked concern from the U.S. and other countries.

Duterte said he would demand that Obama allow him to first explain the context of his crackdown before engaging the U.S. president in a discussion of the deaths.

Duterte had previously also branded the U.S. ambassador to Manila a “gay son of a whore,” and sought to taint the reputation of Pope Francis’s mother in similar fashion.

Duterte was elected to office in a landslide this year after pledging to kill 100,000 people in an unprecedented war on crime.

When faced with criticisms over an apparent spate of extrajudicial killings in his crime war by the United Nations, he responded with what has become familiar abuse.

“Maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations. If you are that disrespectful, son of a whore, then I will just leave you,” he said last month.

The setback in U.S.-Philippine relations comes at a crucial time in the region, with China seeking to cement control over the contested South China Sea.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have competing claims to the strategically vital waters, but have watched China expand its presence by building artificial islands in key locations.

An international tribunal ruled in July that China’s claims to the waters — through which $5 trillion in global shipping trade passes — had no legal basis.

The verdict was widely seen as a sweeping victory for the Philippines, which filed the suit under the previous administration of President Benigno Aquino III.

But China has vowed to ignore the ruling.

And Duterte has sought to heal relations with China rather than inflame them by pressing the tribunal’s ruling.

Under Aquino, the Philippines had forged closer military ties with the United States to deal with the China threat. But Duterte has cast doubt on that strategy.

Obama’s aides had previously said he wanted to discuss the South China Sea issue with Duterte in Laos.

Nevertheless, the South China Sea issue is expected to once again be discussed at the three days of meetings hosted by ASEAN, which will be attended by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The gathering will see the 10 ASEAN members meet by themselves, then with leaders from the U.S., China Japan, South Korea and China.

Other leaders to come for an East Asia summit on Thursday include those from Australia, India and New Zealand.

Laos is the final Asian visit of Obama’s eight-year presidency, during which he has sought to refocus American military, political and economic resources on the region.</s>The US president and his Philippines counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, were set to meet in Laos this week, where Obama is attending a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders. White House officials previously said Obama would confront the Philippines President about his country's handling of drug dealers, including extra-judicial killings , or government executions without the benefit of judicial proceedings or due process.

But the Filipino leader did not take kindly to that notion.

"Who does he think he is? I am no American puppet. I am the president of a sovereign country and I am not answerable to anyone except the Filipino people," Duterte scoffed in a speech Monday. "Son of a b****, I will swear at you."

Duterte went on to blame the US for causing the unrest on the southern Philippines Island of Mindanao.</s>The president of the Philippines has escalated his campaign of obscene abuse at perceived opponents, foreign and domestic, by calling Barack Obama a “son of a whore”.

Rodrigo Duterte warned the US president to keep off the subject of extrajudicial killings in his country’s brutal drug war when they meet on Tuesday at a regional summit in Laos, telling a press conference that Mr Obama “must be respectful”.

Mr Duterte has faced condemnation from human rights campaigners, diplomats and the UN for inciting a war on drugs which, according to official figures published on Sunday, has led to 2,400 deaths in just two months.

Mr Duterte was answering a reporter’s question on Monday about how he intended to explain the extrajudicial killings to Mr Obama, before boarding a plane to Laos for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.

“You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum,” Mr Duterte was quoted by as saying by Agence-France Presse. “We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me.”

The two leaders had been due to hold a meeting on Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit. However, after news of Mr Duterte’s remarks reached the Mr Obama, that appeared to be in doubt.

Mr Obama said he was asking his staff to find out whether a meeting would be useful. “What I’ve instructed my team to do is to talk to their Philippine counterparts to find out is if this in fact a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations,” Mr Obama said at a news conference at the end of the G20 summit in China.

“Obviously the Filipino people are some of our closest friends and allies and the Philippines is a treaty ally of ours. But I always want to make sure that if I’m having a meeting that it’s actually productive and we’re getting something done.”</s>The U.S. State Department and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday stressed the need for ties with the Philippines to be based on mutual respect, after Manila's new leader raised worries about the future of the key alliance by calling President Barack Obama a "son of a bitch."

Despite U.S. dismay over Duterte's remarks, though, current and former U.S. officials played down the impact, saying they did not expect any serious damage to ties at a time of high tensions over China's extensive territorial claims in Asia.

The State Department said a planned first meeting between Obama and his counterpart Rodrigo Duterte on the sidelines of a regional summit in Laos on Tuesday was canceled because the tone of the Philippine leader's rhetoric raised questions about the chances of productive talks.

"Words matter, and we want to see an atmosphere that is cordial and open to strong cooperation," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a regular news briefing in Washington.

Clinton, who as secretary of state was an architect of Obama's policy of emphasizing the importance of the Asia Pacific to U.S. interests in the face of a rising China, said Obama was right to cancel the meeting.

"When the president of the Philippines insulted our president, it was appropriate and a very low-key way to say: sorry, no meeting," she told reporters on her campaign plane.

"We have a lot of ties between the United States and the Philippines. And I think it's very important that we have a relationship, but there has to be a certain level of respect that is expected on both sides," Clinton said.

Duterte made the remark about Obama while explaining that he would not be lectured over extrajudicial killings in the war against drugs he has launched since taking two months ago and which has killed about 2,400 people.

He has previously called the pope a "son of a whore" and the U.S. ambassador a "gay son of whore."

The Philippines voiced regret for Duterte's comments after Obama canceled a formal bilateral meeting. The White House then said Obama might speak with Duterte informally.

Duterte's volatile nature threatens to complicate Washington's ties with its closest ally in Southeast Asia as it tries to forge a united front in the region in response to China's extensive claims in the strategic South China Sea.

The Philippines has been central in this effort due to an international court case it brought and won against Beijing.

In March, the United States and the Philippines agreed on five locations for U.S. military facilities in the country under a new security deal. The deal grants Washington increased military presence in its former colony through rotation of ships and planes for humanitarian and maritime security operations.

Asked about Duterte's comments, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said the defense relationship with the Philippines was a "strong" and "longstanding" one.

Speaking to reporters, Carter also described the Philippines' new defense minister, Delfin Lorenzana, as someone who was "very knowledgeable about all the things that we do together."

An official of the U.S. State Department said "government to government" relations with Manila remained strong.

"The areas that we believe we have robust, strong cooperation with them, we are not going to just simply throw that aside.”

The official noted that Duterte was new to national leadership having served as a city mayor.

"He is maybe feeling his way into the new job," the official said.

Former U.S. officials said China would be pleased by the U.S.-Philippines friction.

“Time will tell whether President Duterte steps back from this episode and realizes he needs to recalibrate his choice of words in engaging U.S. leaders,” said Amy Searight, a former senior Pentagon official now at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Evan Medeiros, Obama’s former top Asia adviser and now a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group, saw the row as a “speed bump, not a road block” in U.S.-Philippines ties.

“It's unfortunate, but doesn’t fundamentally derail the relationship,” he said.</s>VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte defiantly reaffirmed his controversial campaign against illegal substances Tuesday and called for a redoubling of crime-fighting efforts across Southeast Asia as he prepared to face two prominent critics of his policy: President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“We shall not be cowed. We must press on,” he declared in a speech at a business and investment conference on the sidelines of a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which he is attending. He called for increased use of intelligence gathering and more arrests.

Duterte also threatened earlier to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations over criticism of his crackdown on illegal substances that has led to a wave of extrajudicial killings. More than 2,000 people have been killed since June 30, when he took office after winning election on a promise to fight crime and corruption.

The summit has been overshadowed by Obama’s canceling of a meeting with Duterte after the latter warned him not to ask about the killings and used profane language when discussing Obama.

On Wednesday, Duterte is to attend a gala dinner with both Obama and Ban, as well as join a meeting that the two leaders will have with ASEAN heads of state and government.

Earlier Tuesday, Duterte expressed regret over his remarks about Obama.</s>U.S. President Barack Obama canceled what would have been his first meeting with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, a White House spokesman said on Tuesday, after Duterte described Obama as a "son of a bitch".

Duterte, a plain-spoken populist known for his colorful remarks and his campaign against illegal drugs in which thousands of people have died, used the term in front of reporters on Monday, a day ahead of the planned meeting in Laos, where Southeast Asian leaders are meeting for annual summits.

Obama learned about the insult as he emerged from the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China. At a news conference, he said he had told his aides to speak with Philippine officials "to find out is this, in fact, a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations," signaling clearly that the meeting would not proceed as planned.

"I always want to make sure that if I'm having a meeting, that it's actually productive and we're getting something done,” Obama told reporters.

Instead, Obama now plans to meet South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday, said Ned Price, spokesman for the White House National Security Council - a meeting where the response to North Korea's latest missile tests is expected to be on the agenda.

Obama arrived in Vientiane just before midnight on Monday, for the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to Laos, where he wants to begin to address the legacy of U.S. bombing during the Vietnam War.

He was set to give an address on the importance he has placed on Southeast Asia in his foreign and economic policy during his two terms in office, which will end on Jan. 20, setting the stage for three days of meetings with regional leaders.

The White House had earlier said Obama did not plan to pull any punches on his concerns about human rights abuses in the Philippines, its treaty ally, when meeting Duterte.

Duterte won the presidency in May as he promised to suppress crime and wipe out drugs and drug dealers. At least 2,400 people have been killed since he took office on July 1, including 900 in police operations against drug pushers.

The rest are "deaths under investigation", a term human rights activists in the Philippines say is a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings.

Duterte said it would be "rude" for Obama to raise the human rights issue and told reporters such a conversation would prompt him to curse at Obama, using a Filipino phrase "putang ina" which can mean "son of a bitch" or "son of a whore".

"Plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets. Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed we will continue," he said.

Duterte has poured scorn previously on critics, usually larded with curses.

He lambasted the United Nations after it criticized the surge in killings and he turned down a meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the Laos summit.

In May, he called Pope Francis a "son of a whore", although he later apologized, and called U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg a "gay son of a whore."

On Tuesday, Duterte is scheduled to hold meetings in Laos with the leaders of Singapore, Japan and Vietnam.

The unusually open tensions between the United States and the Philippines, its former colony and long-term ally, threaten to overshadow the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Summits in Laos from Tuesday to Thursday.

The 10-member ASEAN will meet leaders of other regional powers: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Russia and the United States.

The Philippines has been aligned with the United States in its dispute with China over the South China Sea, in which Washington blames Beijing for militarizing a vital global trade route and jeopardizing freedom of movement at sea and in the air.

China rejects those accusations and in turn blames the United States for ratcheting up tensions unnecessarily. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.

An arbitration court in The Hague in July invalidated China's vast territorial claims to the waterway after a case was brought by the Philippines, a ruling that Beijing refuses to recognize.

Duterte said last month he expected all ASEAN members to support the arbitration court's ruling, but that the Philippines would not raise the issue in Laos.</s>(CNN) It's not just a runaway tongue that worries the United States about the volatile new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. It's what else he's thinking.

A foul-mouthed outburst cost the new leader of Washington's key Pacific ally a chance to meet President Barack Obama in Laos on Tuesday. Duterte blasted Obama as a "son of a bitch" and warned he would not tolerate any violation of Philippines sovereignty he said such a question would entail, after which the White House canceled their planned parley.

While the nasty spat is not yet likely to damage the enduring relationship between the United States and the Philippines, and the countries' strengthening military cooperation in the shadow of China's rise, there is reason for Washington to be concerned.

The unpredictable new man in charge in Manila introduces an unwelcome element to an already tense region and is casting a late second-term cloud over painstaking effort by Obama to intensify relations between the allies.

More broadly, Duterte's anti-Americanism and haphazard diplomacy is worrying Washington's allies in the region. He has pledged not to bring up South China Sea territorial disputes in multilateral summits, moving closer to the position of Beijing that all parties should hold one-on-one talks with China that exclude the United States.

And that is likely to end up being a problem for the next US president. The new occupant of the Oval Office will face a regional policy challenge dominated by the assertive Chinese President Xi Jinping, who would leap at the chance to weaken US influence.

Duterte and Obama had been due to meet on the sidelines of a regional summit in Laos. But the Filipino leader lashed out when asked by reporters how he would respond if Obama asked about human rights violations committed in his fearsome war on drugs gangs.

"I am a president of a sovereign state. And we have long ceased to be a colony of the United States," Duterte said, paraphrasing how he would address Obama. "Son of a bitch, I will swear at you."

The new Philippines president did not just obliterate the rules of behavior of the international leader's club with his remarks. He aimed a vulgarity at the President, which the White House could not stand for. Hence the meeting's cancellation.

"It was the right decision by President Obama. This was an offense against President Obama personally, but it was also an offense against the office of the Presidency of the United States," Nicholas Burns, the State Department's former third-highest official told CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday.

Duterte has been dubbed by some commentators as the Donald Trump of the Philippines, but even the US billionaire's often fiery rhetoric pales in comparison to the statements that regularly escape the lips of the former mayor of the city of Davao, who was elected in a landslide in May.

The White House clearly wanted to send a signal in its rebuke of Duterte that loose talk and bluster does not cut it on the international stage. Whether officials also had in mind someone closer to home who has made inflammatory statements on foreign policy -- the Republican presidential nominee -- was not clear.

"I think it was our judgment that given the focus and attention on President Duterte's comments leading into the meetings here we felt that didn't create a constructive environment for a bilateral meeting," Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor told reporters in Laos.

Apparently prompted by the US move, Duterte quickly backtracked on Tuesday, saying he did not mean to insult Obama but was addressing a reporter.

But this was not the first time he's directed offensive language at American officials. In August, he called US ambassador to Manila Philip Goldberg a "gay son of a b****" and said Secretary of State John Kerry was "crazy."

Though Duterte's quick retreat after the White House reprimand showed that the US still can call shots in the relationship, it gave Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence an opportunity to attack Obama for squandering US "credibility" in the world.

But the administration has more to worry about than the political impact of Duterte's diatribe. That's because it can never be quite sure what he will do next.

"There has been a lot of concern primarily because I don't think there is a lot of understanding of the Philippine President or any way to predict what he is going to do," said Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence company. "It is that uncertainty that is causing the concern."

While the defense relationship, which is set to see US forces deploy to five bases in the Philippines to provide muscle to Obama's Asia pivot strategy, is not currently at risk, it could be seriously buffeted by a hostile president in Manila.

Some analysts believe that Philippine leaders' remarks represent a long-present streak of anti-Americanism that is inseparable from his worldview -- a scenario that suggests this week's controversy will not be the last of the Duterte era.

"This is a guy that came in already with a deep-seated suspicion of the United States," said Prashanth Parameswaran, associate editor of The Diplomat magazine and a Southeast Asia specialist.

"He is trying to craft what he calls an independent foreign policy for the Philippines. That is a very different line from where the (previous) Aquino administration was in when they came in. The relationship with the US was seen as very significant."

There are undertones in the US relationship with the Philippines that do not exist in other alliances Washington maintains in Asia. The United States claimed the archipelago from Spain following a war in 1898, so sovereignty issues are particularly acute. Even after independence, Washington kept a vast garrison in Subic Bay in the Philippines until being ordered to leave in 1992.

Duterte's recent offer to hold bilateral talks with Beijing on South China Sea claims has also scrambled the geopolitical game in the region, since it may complicate Washington's efforts to build a united front of allies opposed to Beijing's position.

These developments are especially dismaying to Washington since an international court in The Hague ruled against China's territorial claims in the South China Sea in July, saying Beijing had infringed the sovereignty of the Philippines.

The case, which pre-dates the current administration in Manila, was seen as a turning point in the South China Sea controversy -- but Duterte's unilateral approach could water down its impact.

Washington and Manila may also be on a collision course over human rights issues related to Duterte's war on drugs.

Since he took office, more than 1,900 people have died, including at least 700 in police operations. The carnage has sparked alarm among human rights groups, which have complained about a wave of extrajudicial killings.

Sooner or later, the situation is likely to cause trouble in Washington when members of Congress are asked to continue supporting US military aid to the country.

The United States is also interested in ensuring that the current dispute does not harm anti-terror cooperation with the Philippines set up to hunt Al-Qaeda linked groups after the September 11 attacks in 2001 has been scaled back.

While the direction of US-Asia policy remains in doubt in the new administration, the next White House will face a delicate task in managing Duterte.

Manila is due to hold next year's ASEAN summit, and a festering showdown with the president -- and a continuing riot of death in the anti-drugs purge -- could make it difficult for a President Clinton or a President Trump to attend.

"The more optimistic read would be, it's still early days, this is a president who is just over two months into his presidency," said Parameswaran. "It will take a while for Duterte to find his footing on foreign policy, so the expectations for the relationship need to be dampened a little bit."</s>Duterte tells Obama not to question him about killings

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned President Barack Obama not to question him about extrajudicial killings, or "son of a bitch I will swear at you" when they meet in Laos during a regional summit.

Duterte said Monday before flying to Laos that he is a leader of a sovereign country and is answerable only to the Filipino people.

He said Obama must be respectful and not just throw questions at him, or else, "son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum."

Duterte was answering a reporter's question about how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines to Obama. More than 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.
U.S. President Barack Obama cancels a scheduled meeting with the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, after Duterte referred to Obama as a "son of a whore", while adding "I am no American puppet", in response to Obama's recent criticism of his war on drugs.