‘Don’t be afraid,’ Palace tells Catholic clergy after tirades
MANILA, Philippines — Despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s earlier comments for people to rob and kill priests, Catholic clerics should not fear for their lives, Malacañang said Thursday.
“Let the members of the Catholic hierarchy be assured that the president means no harm. They must need not be afraid as we are one with them in their mission in thwarting evil,” presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.
Panelo stressed that those who need to be afraid are “the criminals, the corrupt, the evildoers, the scoundrels, the terrorists and the drug lords and pushers.”
The Catholic Church, its priests and its beliefs have been a constant target in the president's speeches but the Palace has repeatedly explained these away as jokes or Duterte's way to criticize hypocrites in the clergy.
READ: Don't be offended by Duterte comments on beliefs, Catholics told
Death threats vs priests
Panelo made the statement after Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, whom the chief executive has targeted in his speeches in the past, confirmed receiving death threats.
On Wednesday, Panelo said David’s claims of death threats should be investigated as they might just be fabricated.
In the same statement, the presidential spokesman—insisting that Duterte’s tirades against the church were made “in jest”—claimed that critics have been manipulating the chief executive’s pronouncements to confuse the public.
“A joke perceived to be a joke by Filipinos [is] converted by these haters into a grave and serious marching order so as to confuse the public and at the same time put themselves in a position where they can criticize the president,” Panelo said.
Panelo, who has said that the public knows when Duterte is only joking, did not expound on the possible involvement of the president’s critics and how they can "confuse the public" about the statements.
Duterte on Sunday said that those going after priests should “lay off” or risk facing him—a reversal from his lengthy tirades directed at the Catholic Church in the past. He issued the warning after receiving Manila Archbishop Luis Cardinal Tagle’s letter saying that David and some priests received death threats from “someone claiming to be working for the president’s family.”
In December, Duterte suggested that bystanders rob and kill Catholic bishops whom he called “useless.” He made a similar statement at the birthday of a provincial governor in January.
In his defense of the remarks, Panelo said: “If one is a drug addict, it doesn’t matter to him who endorsed. You know, drug addicts are crazy..."
— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) February 27, 2019
PCOO transcript of the Jan. 9 speech show comments were directed to 'tambays', the Dec. 5 remarks were to audience at awards ceremony pic.twitter.com/x9cCYNmMcc
Under Duterte, three priests have been killed by unknown assailants since December 2017, prompting the Church and opposition personalities to condemn the continued “culture of impunity.”
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