Image copyright EPA Image caption Mr Duterte made the claim in a speech to Filipino expatriates 
 
 Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death when he was a teenager. 
 
 "At 16, I killed someone," he told Filipinos in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang, where he is attending a regional summit. He said he stabbed the person "just over a look". 
 
 His spokesman later said his remarks had been "in jest". 
 
 Mr Duterte has previously said he killed criminal suspects as mayor of the city of Davao. 
 
 The Filipino leader is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, alongside regional leaders and US President Donald Trump. 
 
 He has presided over a massive crackdown on crime in the Philippines, which critics allege undermines fundamental human rights. 
 
 Mr Duterte has encouraged extrajudicial killings of those involved in the drugs trade, and said he would "be happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts in the country. 
 
 Addressing the Filipino community in Da Nang, he said he had killed a person during his violent teenage years, when he said he was in numerous fights and "in and out of jail". 
 
 But a spokesman for the president, Harry Roque, told the AFP news agency that the remarks were "in jest" and the Filipino leader often used "colourful language" when addressing Filipinos overseas. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Duterte said last year that he shot dead three men while mayor of Davao 
 
 Mr Duterte has previously said he possibly killed someone while a teenager. In 2015 he told the Philippines edition of Esquire magazine that during "a tumultuous fight in the beach" when he was 17, "maybe I stabbed somebody to death". 
 
 It is not clear if he was referring to the same incident in his speech. 
 
 He also claims to have thrown corrupt officials out of helicopters, warning officials he would do it again if they embezzled financial aid. His spokesman described that claim as an "urban legend". 
 
 Speaking about human rights during his Vietnam visit, Mr Duterte proposed a "world summit" on the issue - but not looking solely at human rights abuses in the Philippines. 
 
 "What makes the death of people in the Philippines more important than the rest of the children in the world that were massacred and killed?" the Manila Bulletin quoted him as saying. 
 
 Since he took office, police say they have killed almost 4,000 people in anti-drug operations. More than 2,000 others have been killed in connection with drug-related crimes. 
 
 In September, the proposed budget for the human rights commission investigating the deaths was cut to 1,000 pesos - the equivalent of $20 (£15). It had asked for 1.72bn pesos ($34m). 
 
 Mr Duterte is due to hold bilateral talks with US President Donald Trump in the Philippines in the coming days - the first meeting between the pair. 
 
 The Philippines president was adversarial towards Mr Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, labelling him a "son of a whore." 
 
 Mr Obama cancelled their scheduled meeting. 

 (CNN) The leader of the Philippines has told a gathering of Filipino expatriates that he killed someone when he was a teenager. 
 
 Referencing human rights criticisms of his policies, Duterte said that he wasn't afraid to go to jail, and apparently used the anecdote to illustrate that. 
 
 "Jail? Jeez. When I was a teenager, I was in and out of jail," he said , in a mixture of Tagalog and English. 
 
 "One fight there, another here -- at the age of 16, I killed someone. A person, really. During a fight. Stabbing. That was when I was 16 years old, just because we just looked at each other," he added, prompting laughter from the audience. 
 
 The controversial leader, who was elected largely on a platform of zero-tolerance against the Philippines' drug scourge, suggested that his approach to the war on drugs, mirrored that of his young self. 
 
 His approach was "even more so as president," he said. "You f**k with my countrymen, I won't let you off the hook. Never mind about the human rights advocates." 
 
 Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque told CNN affiliate CNN Philippines in a text: "I think it was in jest. The President uses colorful language when with Pinoys overseas," using another word for Filipinos. 
 
 Duterte is due to meet US President Donald Trump who arrived in Vietnam Friday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. Trump travels to the Philippines on Sunday for meetings with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 
 
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 Previous allusion? 
 
 In 2015, before his remarkable run to the presidency, he told the Philippines edition of Esquire that he had "maybe" killed someone by stabbing them when he was 17. 
 
 "There was a tumultuous fight in the beach," he said in the interview. 
 
 "We were young men then and we went to this beach and we were drinking and suddenly there was this ... maybe I stabbed somebody to death ... something like that." 
 
 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Speaking at a business forum in Manila in December 2016, Duterte admitted killing suspected criminals during his time as mayor of Davao City. Hide Caption 1 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. The day after Trump won the US presidential election in November 2016, Duterte said he and Trump share some traits. Hide Caption 2 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. After reports emerged of a potentially blocked arms sale, Duterte told CNN Philippines in November 2016 that he would turn to Russia for weapons. Hide Caption 3 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. During a state visit to China in October 2016, Duterte announced his economic and military 'separation' from the US. Hide Caption 4 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. In October 2016 Duterte expressed growing hostility with the US president. Hide Caption 5 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. After US president Barack Obama said he would raise extrajudicial killings in a meeting with Duterte, the Philippines President responded angrily on September 5, first in English then in Tagalog. As a result, Obama canceled the meeting. Hide Caption 6 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. As he addressed troops at the country's Armed Forces Central Command Headquarters on August 5, Duterte recounted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to the country, saying in Tagalog that he was feuding with U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg. Hide Caption 7 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. The Philippines president-elect effectively said he supported vigilantism against drug dealers and criminals in a nationally televised speech in June 2016. Hide Caption 8 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Foreign diplomats weighing in on Rodrigo Duterte's controversial remarks did not sit well with the then-mayor. Hide Caption 9 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Duterte apologized to the Pope after cursing him for the traffic he caused during a 2015 Papal visit to the Philippines. Hide Caption 10 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. In September 2016, Duterte likened himself to the Nazi leader and announced that he wants to kill millions of drug addicts. Hide Caption 11 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Speaking at a press conference to unveil his new cabinet on May 31 2016, Rodrigo Duterte said journalists killed on the job in the Philippines were often corrupt. Hide Caption 12 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. During the third and last presidential debate, Duterte had said that he would plant a Philippine flag in disputed territories should China refuse to recognize a favorable ruling for the Philippines. Hide Caption 13 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Duterte made international headlines in April 2016 with his inflammatory comments on the 1989 rape and murder of an Australian missionary that took place in Davao City. Hide Caption 14 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. He also lashed out at the womens' group that filed a complaint against him before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). Hide Caption 15 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. At a CNN Philippines Townhall event in February 2016, Duterte, admitted that he had three girlfriends and a common-law wife. His marriage to Elizabeth Zimmerman was annulled due to his womanizing, but he denied this meant he objectified women. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things. Although he later denied the accusations, the former Davao City mayor admitted his links to the alleged Davao death squad in a May 2015 broadcast of his local television talk show. Hide Caption 17 of 17 
 
 History of killing 
 
 On top of his controversial war on drugs , which has seen thousands of suspected drug users and pushers killed by police and vigilantes, Duterte has previously claimed to have personally killed people. 
 
 Late last year he admitted killing suspected criminals during his time as mayor of Davao City. 
 
 "In Davao, I used to do it personally. Just to show the guys that, if I can do it, why can't you?" Duterte said. 
 
 "And (I'd) go around Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, and looking for trouble also. I was really looking for an encounter so I could kill." 
 
 He's said that he had taken part in at least one raid on suspected kidnappers during his tenure as mayor, which ended in the suspects' deaths. 
 
 More than 1,000 people were killed by the DDS while Duterte was mayor from 1988 until 2013. His spokesman, Martin Andanar, has denied that he was involved. 
 
 In a televised speech, also in late 2016, he said had previously thrown someone off a helicopter and threatened the same fate to anyone misusing public funds. 
 
 When asked if the event actually happened -- and if the person killed was a kidnapper, as local media was reporting -- Martin Andanar, the presidential communications secretary, told CNN: "It happened; he said it." 
 
 Duterte later walked back the remarks, claiming he was joking. 

 Rodrigo Duterte claims he killed a person as a teenager, in defiant speech to promote his drug war before summit of world leaders 
 
 Philippines president says he once stabbed someone to death 
 
 The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila. 
 
 Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown. 
 
 “When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I’d have rumbles here, rumbles there,” said Duterte, who is in Da Nang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. 
 
 “At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?” 
 
 Duterte won last year’s presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed. Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data. 
 
 Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer. But critics at home and abroad say he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes. 
 
 He at times denies inciting police or others to kill, but also consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war. 
 
 Duterte said last year he would be “happy to slaughter” 3 million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a “son of a whore” for criticising the crackdown. 
 
 Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example for the police. 
 
 His then spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying the killings took place during a “legitimate police action”. 
 
 Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he “maybe” stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Da Nang. 
 
 In an election campaign rally, Duterte also said he was expelled from college for shooting a fellow student who was insulting him. The victim reportedly survived. 
 
 Duterte’s aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in “hyperbole”. 
 
 His new spokesman, Harry Roque, indicated that may be the case with his stabbing-to-death claim. “I think it was in jest. The Pres uses colourful language when w Pinoys (Filipinos) overseas,” Roque said in a text message. 
 
 In Da Nang, Duterte also targeted the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who has been a frequent critic of the drug war. “This rapporteur,” he said, after referring to Callamard by name. “I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me.” 
 
 Duterte’s latest comments come days before he hosts the US president, Donald Trump, and other leaders for the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) summit. 
 
 Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with other world leaders on Sunday evening before two days of talks. 
 
 Trump has praised Duterte’s handling of the drug war, telling the Philippine leader in a telephone call in April that he was doing a “great job”. 
 
 Human rights campaigners have said the summit will be a public relations coup for Duterte, with Trump and other leaders expected to ignore the drug war controversy. 
 
 “Duterte will enjoy the gift of tacit silence from east Asian leaders on his murderous drug war during the upcoming summit,” Phelim Kine, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, told AFP. 
 
 Adding to a sense of confidence ahead of the event, Duterte on Thursday also proposed hosting a global summit on human rights in which all nations would be placed under the microscope. 
 
 “Let us investigate all violations of human rights committed by all governments,” he said, specifically naming the US, France and Russia.
– Will President Trump meet face-to-face with a killer while in Asia? Depends on how literally you take the word of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who on Thursday said, "At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look." A rep for the president, however, tells the AFP the remark was made "in jest," and says Duterte regularly uses "colorful language" when addressing Filipinos overseas, as he was doing while in Da Nang, Vietnam. CNN reports the comments were made in the context of discussing human right advocates who are no fans of his. He expressed that jail didn't frighten him, and "apparently used the anecdote to illustrate that." He also said in part, "Jail? Jeez. When I was a teenager, I was in and out of jail." The BBC reports it's not the first time Duterte has referenced a teenage killing, and quotes him as saying in 2015 that during "a tumultuous fight in the beach" around the age of 17, "maybe I stabbed somebody to death."