[Trending Now] The Real Reason Why Duterte Distrusts The US. Read About The Incident Here

The spiteful words of President Rodrigo Duterte against US have been under fire by diplomats and concerned citizens of the country. Some said it would affect the ties between the two countries while some said it is high time for the Philippines to be independent of the superpower country.

But in the first place, where is this hate coming from? America's National Public Radio (NPR) released an investigative article on one of the reasons why Duterte dislikes US.

In the article, a self-declared American treasure hunter named Michael Merring blew himself up in room 305 at Evergreen Hotel in Southern Davao last May 2002.

According to then commander of Sta. Ana Police Station Fe Basan, they arrived at the scene minutes after the explosion, seeing Merring wounded, unconscious, and his leg gone from the explosion.

Merring was rushed to the nearest hospital while Basan is preparing to file a case against him for property damage and keeping an explosive device.

Mindanao was a dangerous place back then, a hotbed of separatist violence — beset by an ongoing communist insurgency and various Muslim separatist groups. 

At the time of the Meiring incident, there had been recent other bombings, not far from Davao, which made police eager to question the American.

But they never got the chance. Meiring was checked out of the hospital just a day later, allegedly by U.S. operatives, according to the former commander of military intelligence in Davao at the time, who wishes to remain anonymous.

"According to the doctor, he was taken by men, at least four, wearing FBI shirts, and then he was flown from Davao to Manila in a chartered plane," the former commander says.

Merring died last 2012 in the US and his arrest warrant is still resting on the drawers of Sta. Fe Police Station.

This fueled the anger of then-mayor Duterte, saying the sovereignty of the Philippines was not respected by the Americans.

The Meiring case is one reason for Duterte's mistrust of the U.S. — the main reason, according to most sources — but not the only one. 

His sense of grievance goes back even further into the past, to history dating back to the U.S. colonial rule of the Philippines from 1898 to 1946.

"He's not against the American people. But more the policy," says Editha Caduaya, a Davao-based journalist who has known Duterte for decades. 

He is angry, she says, about "the injustice done to the Moros," the Muslims of Mindanao. Why? "Because his mother has roots from the Muslim settlers of Mindanao."

Duterte is particularly incensed, Caduaya says, about the alleged massacre of hundreds of Moro Muslims, including women and children, by U.S. troops on the island of Jolo in 1906. 

Duterte circulated pictures from that era to his fellow heads of state at last month's ASEAN summit in Laos.

Even so, Duterte says he still values the U.S.-Philippine allies relationship. He just wants the U.S. to stay out of the Philippines' domestic affairs. 

Source: TNP , NPR