PEOPLE who are prim and proper are shocked and scandalized when the tough-talking Davao Mayor Rody Duterte says he would hang criminals with ropes to save on electricity or that he would throw the corrupt into Manila Bay to fatten the fish.
Human rights advocates Leila de Lima, who is the country’s justice secretary, and Etta Rosales, head of the human rights commission in the Philippines, even publicly denounced Duterte’s public threats issued against criminals and warned that the mayor could be charged criminally.
A young Davaoeña who identified herself as Jules Butlig and who claims to have grown up in the City of Davao knowing no other mayor but Duterte, said the mayor’s statements should be read between the lines.
In a message sent to MannyPiñol.com on Facebook, Jules Butlig, who now lives in Makati, said understanding Duterte’s often inflammatory and discomforting statements should be an “exercise in critical thinking.”
“I am a daughter of Davao who longs to be back in my city. I love my city. I love my mayor. And I thank the heavens for him and for what he did for the city and its people,” she wrote in what was supposed to be a private message but which I decided to share with readers after she allowed me to.
“I ache when people here misjudge him for his crassness. Outsiders think of him only as the Dirty Harry. But the sons and daughters of Davao know that he is more than that. He is our daddy. He disciplines and protects us, provides us the conditions for a better life now and for the future,” she said.
“We love and respect him despite (or perhaps because of) his imperfections. We laugh off his expletives and we know how to read between his lines. We know that listening to him is an exercise in critical thinking because he has the penchant for dry humor and sarcasm,” Jules Butlig wrote.
“He is not just a gun-toting mayor, as mainstream media would have the rest of the population believe. More than that, he is a strong leader whose heart is in the right place, in his people,” she said.
Indeed, those who take Duterte’s public pronouncements literally are doomed to anger and disgust.
They fail to understand that the controversial mayor’s statements are filled with sarcasm and contempt at the establishment, at government, at the justice system, at the church and at politicians who have made public service a llivelihood activity.
Duterte spews out invectives and expletives which ordinary people enraged by the wrongs in society and government now would like to shout publicly but do not have the courage to do so.
The “put…ina,” the “fu.. ..u,” and the dirty finger are expressions of disgust which the ordinary people themselves wanted to say and flash.
This is perhaps the secret behind Duterte’s almost unstoppable and phenomenal popularity surge.
The poor and the unshod could read between the lines of Duterte’s tough talk and expletives and they understand the dry humour and sarcasm.
Jules Butlig was right. People like Leila de Lima and Etta Rosales fail to see behind the crassness of Duterte the image of the ordinary Filipino who applauds as the mayor slaps and pummels the dregs of society with his cutting and biting commentaries.
Duterte is the personification of Filipinos who are discontented with the corruption in government, the crime in the streets and the failure of government to really listen to the ordinary people.The angry and frustrated masses see themselves in Duterte and they would like to run government, correct the wrongs in society and be heard and attended to.
They know they can only do that if they make Duterte their President. – Manny Piñol, former governor, North Cotabato
End Dependence Day
THE National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) is one with the Filipino people in asserting for genuine independence and in defending Philippine sovereignty this 117th year of “bogus” independence.
We took to the streets not to celebrate the “nominal independence day,” but to protest the Chinese government’s blatant disregard and disrespect of Philippine sovereignty and to protest the continued adherence of the Philippine government to the imperialist dictates of the United States government.
It is our duty and responsibility as humane, breathing, living citizens of this country, to end the Philippines’ dependence to the US and to end the aggression of the Chinese government over our waters and territories in the West Philippine Sea.
The Chinese government has been aggresively claiming the Spratlys. Chinese patrol boats have even water-cannoned Filipino fisherfolks in Scarborough or Panatag Shoal. It has occupied Mischief Reef. The Chinese government has no regard nor respect for Philippine sovereignty.This encroachment by the Chinese government has, quite predictably, earned the interest of the US. The US intervention in this dispute does not mean friendship with the Philippines. In fact, it really simply means deflecting Chinese presence to ensure US imperialist presence in the West Philippine Sea.
That is why, now more than ever, NUSP decries this encroachment of our sovereignty. We reiterate that we do not need a government that kowtows to US hegemony. 117 years of slavery to the US are enough! We reiterate the necessity to assert our territories in the West Philippine, with China lording over what is rightfully ours.
NUSP strongly avers that the Philippines has been placed in a “no win situation” between two gigantic rocks of foreign power: China on one hand, and US on the other. Yet, we do not need to choose between the two.Our one choice is to defy their hegemonies, defend our sovereignty and whole-heartedly serve the people. End dependence day!––Sarah Jane Elago, NUSP national president
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