DFA ‘disassociates’ self from Locsin’s controversial tweet

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Monday distanced itself from the controversial statement made by Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Teodoro Locsin Jr. on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.

"The Department of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines completely disassociates itself from the statement made on Twitter by Ambassador Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr.," the DFA said in a statement.

"Such statement was made in his strictly personal capacity," it added.

In a now-deleted tweet, Locsin, a former DFA chief under the Duterte administration, responded to a tweet by saying:

"That's why Palestinian children should be killed; they might grow up to become as gullible as innocent Palestinians letting Hamas launch rockets at Israel; not that they could stop them but that's no excuse," he said.

"They are Muslims. They could stage mass suicide attacks against Hamas until the latter ran out of bullets. You know, do it with the same courage as white people showed to win their freedom as in the cases of…uh, let's see now, uh…uh…well never mind. It's a thought," he added.

The tweet, which quickly spread on the internet, earned the ire of many netizens, including foreign nationals.

After deleting the tweet, Locsin apologized and said it was a "sarcastic response to a tweet."

"I immediately deleted my sarcastic response to a tweet as I realized it could be misconstrued and retweeted to incite," he said.

"My apologies to those who did misconstrue my sentiments and did in fact get triggered — I obviously was not advocating for the literal death of anyone, but rather simply for the end of any ideology that condones terrorism in any way, shape, or form," he added.