MANILA - The European Union's Delegation in the Philippines was not invited to President Rodrigo Duterte's second State of the Nation Address (SONA) in an apparent break of tradition, ABS-CBN News confirmed Thursday.

A source from the EU Delegation told ABS-CBN News that “the EU Delegation didn’t receive an invitation for the SONA.”

Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella had said Thursday that the EU Delegation, as well as the Commission on Human Rights, were invited to the SONA but that they declined to attend.

“The invitations did not come from the Palace. The invitations come from the House. They were actually invited but, apparently, they declined,” Abella said in a news conference at the Palace on Thursday.

• READ: CHR, EU declined SONA invitation - Palace

Abella made the remark amid reports that representatives from the EU and the CHR were not invited to the President's national address.

While the EU Delegation had no representative, envoys from the bloc's member nations were present at the annual address, where the entire diplomatic corps is usually invited.

The EU has long been at the receiving end of the President's tirades due to its vocal criticism of his war on drugs.

At the risk of earning Duterte's ire, several EU parliamentarians recently went to the Philippines to check on the country's human rights situation and to visit Sen. Leila de Lima, the President's political arch nemesis currently detained on drug charges.

In May, Duterte rejected a P13 billion grant from the EU as it supposedly interfered with the Philippines’ domestic affairs.

The EU is the fourth largest trading partner of the Philippines in 2016. Since December 2014, the Philippines has enjoyed enhanced trade preferences with the EU under the bloc's Generalized Scheme of Preferences plus (GSP+), a trade privilege that is tied to a country’s performance of its human rights obligations.

Earlier this year, the EU said it was reviewing such trade perks.

Shrugging off international and local pressure, Duterte in his SONA said his much criticized war on drugs will continue.

"The fight against illegal drugs will continue because that is the root cause of so much evil and so much suffering that weakens the social fabric and deters foreign investments from pouring in," Duterte said.

"The fight will be unrelenting...the fight will not stop until those who deal in it understand they have to cease, they have to stop because the alternatives are either jail or hell.”

• READ: In 2nd SONA, Duterte reiterates 'unrelenting' campaign vs drugs

The Duterte administration has many times defended its drug war against critics, saying reported figures- from 7,000 to 9,000- were overblown.

Latest Philippine National Police (PNP) data show that a total of 3,200 drug personalities were killed in anti-drug operations from July 1, 2016 to June 20, 2017, or 9 killed daily in presumed legitimate anti-drug operations in the first year of the Duterte administration.

The PNP has also determined that out of the 12,833 homicide cases from July 1, 2016 to June 16, 2017, 2,098 deaths were drug-related and 2,535 non-drug related. A total of 8,200 homicide cases were under investigation "with motives to be determined," the PNP said.