Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte may contain his signature colorful language when he arrives in Singapore for a two-day state visit on Thursday. Like the U.S., Pope Francis and countless others, the Southeast Asian nation has also been a victim of the President's verbal tirades. Last year, the 71-year old recalled how he burned a Singapore flag in 1995 to protest against the execution of a Filipina maid.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte greets members of the Filipino community in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on December 13, 2016. Tang Chhin Sothy | AFP | Getty Images

"F*** you...You are a garrison pretending to be a country," he said in a Nov. 2015 speech, referring to the city-state.

Singapore doesn't take too kindly to insults. In the past, the country's leaders have sued and won damages or out-of-court settlements from foreign publications, including the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Economist, for defamatory allegations. Duterte, who met with Cambodia's government early this week, isn't expected to apologize for his remarks, but he may be extra-cautious on this trip. "I expect him to be on his best behavior in Singapore," said Murray Hiebert, Southeast Asia specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The bilateral visit is aimed at expanding business ties, deepening defense and security cooperation as well as discussing key issues facing the region, so "having fruitful discussions in these areas will require that he not set his interlocutor teeth on edge with abusive name calling," Hiebert added. Duterte will also be holding a session with Singapore's Filipino residents on Friday, a common practice of his when traveling abroad. There were an estimated 140,000 Filipino workers in Singapore last year, according to Philippine statistics, many of whom are employed as domestic helpers. Cases of maid abuse are all too frequent in the nation—in March, a Singaporean couple faced charges of failing to adequately feed their Filipina maid—and given Duterte's remarks in the past, it's a topic he may raise. Though the President tends to be the most colorful on his overseas trips, especially when giving speeches to overseas Filipino workers, it's unlikely he will mar his first visit to Singapore by controversial tirades against the island-nation, noted Malcolm Cook, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a think-tank specializing in Southeast Asia.



