Duterte: Caught with a foot and mouth disease!

Finally the day of reckoning has come for Presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe where the 2nd Division of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has disqualified her to run for President in the 2015 presidential polls. My understanding of this report from Sen. Poe’s spokesman Rep. Rex Gatchalian is that this is still part of the legal process and comes only from the 2nd Comelec Division. According to Gatchalian, the Comelec en banc will still make a final decision on this matter, so as of now she is still a presidential candidate… until the Comelec makes that en banc decision on this matter.

While I agree with Rep. Rex Gatchalian that nothing is final yet and they can still avail themselves of appeal to the Supreme Court, however I suggest that the camp of Sen. Grace Poe should now look for her other options in this political race. There is no sense in pushing for what you want when some people want to block your path using the Constitution as their tool. Yet in the end, these very same people misuse the Constitution when it suits them.

My message to Sen. Grace Poe is… there are many people out there who just like you are sick and tired of this kind of politics and want  real change. The root of all evils in today’s crop of politicians are the political dynasties that have ruled this nation since the 1986 EDSA Revolt. This is why we have become a very corrupt nation!

Somehow the 1987 Constitution preserved our ugly political past that started with the killing of Gat Andres Bonifacio by his rival Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and ended with the Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao. All that was politics Philippine style and we need to change this system so more people can join and help rule this nation for all; not just for the sacred few cows.

Call it the curse of this nation. But I dare say that it is time to change the Constitution and install a parliamentary and federal system of governance in this country. It is just unfortunate that the very man who espoused federalism and openly declared war against Imperial Manila is Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte whose popularity was soaring into the heavens until a few days ago when he openly attacked the Catholic Church, saying that the church should change so that it won’t become extinct.

Mayor Duterte also took potshots at Pope Francis, literally cursing the Pope for visiting the country. He is the only person I know who openly denounced the Pope’s visit…well 11 smonths after the visit of Pope Francis. First of all, it is obvious to me that Mayor Duterte is no longer Catholic in his ways. He clearly didn’t even care to read Matt. 16: 18, “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”

If the Catholic Church prevailed against the might of the Roman Empire and has lasted for over 2,000 years, let me tell you Mayor Duterte it will certainly outlast you before it goes extinct. For sure, the Catholic Church will never change because you want it to change. I’m sorry that it is the first time that we heard that you were sexually abused by a priest. Therefore you should condemn that priest… but not the whole church. Just because some low functionary in Davao City Hall was found to be corrupt, it doesn’t make the entire Davao City Hall or even the Mayor corrupt for that matter.

But the die has been cast. Mayor Duterte has said a mouthful to the point; he doesn’t realize that he has really caught a “Foot-and-mouth-disease.” Looking at what the Netizens have posted photos of Mayor Duterte kissing different women (was that an ABS-CBN reporter?) and showing his friends within the New People’s Army (NPA), yet many people think that Mayor Duterte can say what he wants and literally get away with murder!

Duterte’s “Foot-in-the-mouth” disease has gotten so viral in the last couple of day that all the Netizens are giving Mayor Duterte their own expletive’s tit-for-tat because he cursed the Pope and the Catholic Church, I believe that his Presidential campaign would become “meteoric!” And like a meteor that brightens up the night sky, it vanishes before anyone can say anything or even take a photograph.

Arch. Soc Villegas retort on Mayor Duterte’s remarks against the Pope also went viral when he said, “When we find vulgarity funny, we have really become beastly and barbaric as a people. When a revered and loved and admired man like Pope Francis is cursed by a political candidate and the audience laugh, I can only bow my head and grieve in great shame. When a revered and loved and admired man like Pope Francis is cursed by a political candidate and the audience laugh, I can only bow my head and grieve in great shame. My countrymen has gone to the dregs.” I’m tempted to also curse Mayor Duterte, but my spiritual adviser told me to refrain, as “All sinners are children of God for whom God would do everything, even dying on the cross to save them.”

*    *    *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.