MANILA, Philippines — Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David took up the cudgels for his mother who successfully raised 13 children and was given a Gintong Ina Award, saying she did not deserve to be called a “whore” by President Duterte.
In a statement posted yesterday on his Facebook account, the bishop defended his deceased mother, Bienvenida Siongco David (1922-2000), who was mentioned in passing by Duterte when he attacked the bishop, who has been a strong critic of his anti-drug campaign.
The President described David as a son of a whore during Tuesday’s launching of a campaign of a local candidate in Malabon City.
“He called me a son of a whore for allegedly attacking him from the Church pulpit, which I have never ever done,” said David, who is also vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). “The pulpit is never for that purpose. Unless, of course, he thinks that calling for an end to violence and extrajudicial killing in my diocese is tantamount to attacking him.”
In the FB post, he paid tribute to his mother Bienvenida Siongco David, who married his father, an assistant prosecutor, at a young age just before the war ended and made ends meet to raise her 13 children.
“At home, my mother augmented the education that we were getting from public schools by tutoring us herself in between the endless house chores. She did all she could, to make sure that, even after she was widowed at age of 58, she would be able to get all 13 of us to finish college and to practice our professions decently as productive citizens of this country,” David wrote.
Bienvenida was given the Gintong Ina Award in the late ’80s. She passed away as the millennium came to a close in December 2000.?“Our family does not expect anyone in government to give her recognition for her immense contribution in nation building. But we do not expect anyone either, to insult her memory and call her a whore. She does not deserve it,” David wrote in his post before it was deactivated.
He added that “her efforts did not end up in vain (as) not a single one of her children became a liability to the country.”
“She succeeded in raising one sociologist, one architect/urban planner, two lawyers, one civil engineer, one real estate broker, one banker, one medical technologist, one critical care nurse, one bishop, one nutritionist, one dentist and one economist,” the bishop, who has admitted receiving death threats following a word war between him and the President, pointed out.
He recalled that his mother, who lived during the Japanese occupation, married his father when she was just 23 years old. She excelled in class from elementary to college, but was unable to complete a degree because of the war. – With Marc Jayson Cayabyab