Duterte’s unfiltered ‘talkatise’

Admitting one’s fault and making apology for it are acts that President Rodrigo Duterte has done so many times already since he first assumed office in Malacañang in June 2016. In fact, a month before the May 2016 elections, then presidential candidate Duterte issued public apology over a joke involving the rape of an Australian missionary during the Davao City jail riot that nearly caused him the elections.

“I apologize to the Filipino people for my recent remarks (in a rally). Sometimes, my mouth can get the better of me,” Mayor Duterte addressed his audience. This was after he drew bitter flaks from women’s groups while his political rivals weighed in on his rape joke.

Just last week, while enjoying his usual extemporaneous speech in his home city, the President cracked another sour joke that Davao City has the highest number of rape cases in the country because it has many beautiful women. Can someone give the President a copy of book on jokes he could use without offending sensitivities?

And for the nth time – with feelings – President Duterte made again a public apology last Monday while on a state visit to Israel.

Speaking before overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Jerusalem on the first day of his state visit, President Duterte apologized to former United States president Barack Obama for cussing at him publicly out of anger at the latter’s criticism of his bloody anti-illegal drugs campaign in the Philippines. It was not clear why the tough-talking President Duterte suddenly changed his tunes in his opinion about Obama.

Only recently in his speeches the past few weeks, President Duterte repeatedly criticized Obama even after the former US leader already stepped down from the White House in January last year. He often recalls how he had cursed at Obama for supposedly humiliating him publicly over alleged human rights abuses in the conduct of his war against illegal drugs in the Philippines.

“I got angry. I said, ‘son of a b****, Obama, you can go to hell. You son of a b****.’ I said that because he was not a civilized person anyway. Being a president of a republic you ought to know the basic rules. You do not criticize, especially if it is a problem of the country that you are criticizing,” President Duterte fumed.

It got to a point that President Duterte declared the Philippines’ “separation” from the US as our country’s traditional ally in this part of the world in pursuit of an independent foreign policy for the country. As if to taunt the US, he played the China card to the hilt even while getting so much bitter attacks at home for not insisting at this time our country’s hard-fought territorial maritime claims on the West Philippine Sea.

But last Monday, while meeting with the OFW community in Israel, President Duterte turned civil with Obama. “Well then, it would be appropriate also to say at this time to Mr. Obama that you are now a civilian and I am sorry for uttering those words. No, it was just a plain talkatise also like yours. We have learned our lessons very well,” President Duterte said.

If it is any consolation, it is not only Obama who gets a shower of expletives from the foul-mouthed Davao City mayor when he feels crossed by any one or any group or any country for that matter.

Aside from Obama, the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN) also expressed concern over Duterte’s war on illegal drugs, one of his major campaign promises that won for him the 2016 elections.

Actually, Obama was just the latest recipient of public apology from the Philippine President. While also in a state visit in South Korea, the Chief Executive apologized to the government of Kuwait for his “harsh” language at the height of the diplomatic row with the controversial rescue of distressed OFWs in that Middle East country.

“For the first time, I would say that I was harsh in my language, maybe because that was a result of an emotional outburst, but I’d like to apologize now. I’m sorry for the language that I was using but I’m very satisfied by the way how you (Kuwait government) responded to the problems of my country,” President Duterte told the OFW community in South Korea last June 3.

Also in emotional outburst to one of his administration’s anti-drug war critics that his rise could be likened to Germany’s Adolf Hitler, President Duterte bragged he would be “happy to slaughter” drug addicts on the scale of the Nazi leader’s Jewish genocide. “But it is not really that I said something wrong. But rather they do not really want to tinker with the memory, so I apologize profoundly and deeply to the Jewish (people),” the President cited.

While conceding he tends to use foul language whenever he loses his temper, President Duterte also loses control over his wide-range appreciation of world events.

In a speech during a Palace event last April 5, President Duterte mentioned that “genocide” was taking place in Rakhine state in Myanmar, referring to the situation of Rohingya Muslims there. A week later, President Duterte made a public apology to Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi during his press conference at the airport upon his return from official visits to China and Hong Kong.

Addressing the Myanmar leader, the President said: “I will apologize to you but if you have noticed my statement was almost a satire.” All he wanted to say, he explained later, was European countries criticize Myanmar for its supposed human rights violations but do not offer the Rohingya refugees a home in their country.

To date, his best yet apology was made no less than to his God. “I said sorry God, if God is taken in a generic term by everybody listening,” he said. This was in July after calling God “stupid,” a remark that has caused uproar among members of the Catholic Church and other religious groups.

However, President Duterte apparently never learns from the hazards of his “talkatise.”

If he continues with his unfiltered “talkatise,” we may have Mayor Duterte getting the distinction of being the most apologetic President the country ever had.