Philippines Duterte: God told me to stop swearing

[jpak]

Source: BBC

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he has promised God he will clean up his famously vulgar language.

Arriving in his home city of Davao after a trip to Japan, Mr Duterte said God gave him an ultimatum on the plane.

"I heard a voice telling me to stop swearing or the plane will crash in mid-air, and so I promised to stop," he told reporters at the airport.

Mr Duterte's blunt speaking, often directed at the West, has contributed to his popularity at home.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37795957

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WTF?

[truthisfreedom]

1. Some sort of code saying "please take me back I'll be good?"

[icymist]

18. More like code for he's praying to God that somebody won't shoot his plane down while he's flying!

He's probably one of those people who smoked a lot of weed in his youth and then got real paranoid. Just like that there are some people who should not drink, there are some people who should not do pot. Because it makes you think. A lot.

[jmowreader]

2. It's too bad God didn't tell him to stop trying to whack his constituents

[shenmue]

4. Could have been missed

If he asked for more peanuts.

[4bucksagallon]

3. Yeah I can see Davao from my front patio it's about 9 miles across....

the Davao Gulf. I am avoiding it for a while 'coz I just know Gawd is gonna hit the city with a tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, or meteor strike...... soon.. Dirty Duterte can't keep his tongue under control.. If I lived in Davao City I would consider moving outside the city limits... LOL...

[HAB911]

5. Why am I not suprised this goofball hears voices?!

[47of74]

11. Probably the same voices George W. Bush did.

And like Bush, it's not the voice of God talking to him either.

[AgadorSparticus]

24. +1,000!!! LOL

[Helen Borg]

6. But killing people without a trial is fine...

Gotta start somewhere!

[paleotn]

7. The man is certifiable...

[madokie]

8. Beware

of folks who hear voices in their head

They're crazy!

[CentralMass]

28. Hey, I have to have someone to talk to;-)

[Dorian Gray]

9. crazy as a loon

[retrowire]

10. ladies and gentlemen...

The new Ghaddafi.

[dalton99]

12. Actually God told him to go jump in Subic Bay

[FailureToCommunicate]

14. Welcome to DU!

[Liberalagogo]

13. Advice:

[geek tragedy]

15. great job , people of the Philippines, you picked a real winner nt

[ansible]

22. Honestly, he was the best choice in comparison to the rest

The Philippine political system is so horribly corrupt it makes ours look like a utopian system. Duterte was the only one who wasn't part of the entrenched family clans that have controlled the country since the spanish colonial era. Only 12 families control 95% of the country's wealth and are worth billions while the average filipino lives on less than $1 a day. That's why he won to begin with, he was an outsider who promised to shift political power away from Manila, especially since he's not a tagalog.

[geek tragedy]

23. He legalized murder and is selling the entire country to China nt

[metalbot]

25. One might argue, in a certain sense, that we have too

Duterte considers drugs to be one of the most serious problems in the Philippines, so he's killing drug dealers. We consider terrorism to be one of our most serious problems, so we send drones over Pakistan and kill people that we think are terrorists (along with thousands more who aren't). The US then turns around and calls out Duterte on human rights violations for doing what is arguably the same thing that the US is doing. In response to US criticisms, Duterte reaches out to other world powers who aren't going to call him out on an international stage.

[Side Note: Thaksin, prime minister of Thailand during the early years of the "war on terror", provided direct military support during the Gulf War, as well as intelligence support in detaining key terrorists in Thailand. Like Duterte, Thaksin launched an extrajudicial campaign against drug dealers, which the US condemned, to which Thaksin responded "You know, the US is a really crappy ally - it's really all about what's convenient for them"]

I know that analogy is a stretch, but it's not a huge stretch. We can argue there are mitigating circumstances, that we would actually go arrest terrorists in Pakistan if we could, and that we'd bring them to trial (except our history says that if we did arrest terrorists overseas, they would likely be shipped to somewhere outside of the US justice system).

I know a lot of poor Filipinos who are big Duterte supporters. They are pretty fed up - they've seen power go back and forth between the same handful of families for the last 200 years, and economic development in the PI has significantly lagged that of many of its immediate neighbors. While there can be some analogies drawn between Trump and Duterte based on the lack of a filter between their brains and mouths, they are really representing opposite ideological ends.

[geek tragedy]

27. He legalized murder.

You just need to say someone is a drug dealer or abuser and you have the right to kill them.

It's nuts.

Anyhow, the Chinese are going to be colonizing the place, so presumably murder will eventually be considered a crime there one day.

[metalbot]

29. I suppose

He legalized murder in much the same way that the US did by saying "killing people in sovereign nations using drones isn't really murder as long as someone told us that one of the guys in the car was a terrorist".

I'm not sure that what Duterte is doing is much different from a moral perspective, yet there have been more posts on DU since Duterte's election about his extrajudicial killing program than there have been about our own similar programs.

I'm fairly certain that most Filipinos would argue that drugs are a much greater threat to their country than terrorism is to the US.

Again - not arguing in favor of murdering people for being suspected drug dealers, just pointing out that the US doesn't really have the moral authority to condemn this.

[haele]

16. Maybe his Chinese business advisor suggested he get out of the habit of swearing.

Chinese in authority positions are very concerned about respect and "face" - if he starts swearing at a major Chinese investor out of habit, he'll either lose any negotiating position he may have, or that investor will just leave.

He's the type of sociopathic bully who uses the word "God" as a marketing tool - a way to convince the locals he's a good, moral leader by saying the right words, and still doing whatever he wants to do.

He's still a mob leader. The only difference is that he preys on gangster competitors to as a PR stunt instead of preying on the general public.

Haele

[roamer65]

19. This is what a Drumpf presidency would look like.

Except throw in the secession of a few states as well, like CA.

[closeupready]

20. At least it wasn't his dog talking to him.

That would be seriously frightening.

[smirkymonkey]

21. God told him to stop swearing.

Killing is ok, but just don't swear, because that's really bad.

[bravenak]

26. This asshole needs a professional