What else did he joke about?

Herbie Gomez

I DON’T know how the mayor of Davao, Rodrigo Duterte, would transform himself from being a “joker” to presidential overnight when he replaces President Aquino next month.

The problem with his “jokes” is, many times, they’re simply not funny like his sickening pre-election “narrative” about the Australian missionary who was raped by inmates, and then killed during a hostage crisis in Davao years ago. It wasn’t a rape joke but a narrative, he insisted in one interview. Yet, as the video recording shows, people who shared the stage with him and the crowd laughed at what they and the world clearly saw as a very offensive rape joke. While he may be excused for that very unpresidential behavior because he cracked the joke at a time when he wasn’t elected President yet, no one can say that it was mayoral.

Last week, he advised journalists not to take everything he says seriously. “If it’s a preposterous statement, do not believe it,”  the Inquirer quoted Duterte as saying. “If I say something like that, don’t buy it. If the answer is preposterous or ridiculous, whisper to the one next to you from the Davao media and check if I’m serious.”

He adds in the Inquirer report: “I’m just enjoying my last few days… I am enjoying… my rudeness.”

Now that’s going to be a problem. It means that every time the next President says something, people would need to look for a media worker from Davao just to ask if he’s serious or not. Suppose one member of the Davao media says that he’s serious, and another one insists that he’s just joking. What then?

Simply put, that would make journalists from Davao participants in every story about pronouncements made by Duterte.

Suppose Duterte declares a revolutionary government and the abolition of Congress and the judiciary. (That sounds preposterous.) Part of the news story will read this way: “President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday threw the 1987 Constitution into the dustbin as he declared the abolition of the government’s legislative and judicial branches, and the creation of a revolutionary government with him as its head.

“… According to a reporter (supply the name) who has covered the Davao city hall for years, the President was serious and was merely being true to his campaign promise of change.

“… But  (supply the name), an editor from that city very close to the Duterte family, maintained that the President was merely joking.”

I don’t know if it has occurred to Duterte that his advice just turned journalists into interpreters of the next President’s pronouncements. Journalists are storytellers, not spokespersons or interpreters or worse, mind readers.

If it’s any consolation, I’m glad that Duterte has promised to stop his rudeness and penchant for telling bad jokes like this once he sits as President. The promise, for one, was an acknowledgment of this flaw in his character, and that he sees the need to behave the way a President should. I wish he would succeed in doing this. But  honestly, I have yet to see a rude and an uncouth person become polite and refined overnight. These are qualities that are shaped in the home and during a person’s scouting days. But there’s no harm in trying.

Now, can we ask journalists from Duterte’s city if he was serious about his promise “to clean up his language and spare the presidency from the curse words he wields around like a deadly weapon” when he takes over? Or was he merely joking?

It makes me wonder–what else did Duterte joke about?

Pastilan.