DAVAO CITY – After “hearing a voice from above” on his flight from Japan to Davao, tough-talking President Rodrigo Duterte vowed he would no longer utter cuss words.
This drew applause from the members of the Cabinet who were part of the President’s delegation in his three-day state visit to Japan.
The President, however, cut them short saying, “Huwag masyadong palakpak baka mapalpak pa tuloy (Don’t clap too much, this might fail).”
“I was looking at the skies while I was coming over here and I…I just…Everybody was asleep, snoring, but a voice said that, you know, ‘if you don’t stop epithets, I will bring this plane down now.’ And I said, ‘who is this?’ So, of course, it’s God. Okay,” the President said just before the question and answer with the members of the media on his arrival on Thursday night at Davao International Airport.
He said he made a promise to God that he would no longer utter cuss words, “because a promise to God is a promise to the Filipino people.”
When asked if the promise to stop cussing would include the United States, the European Union and Senator Leila de Lima, who were subjects of his attacks the past weeks for criticizing his policies and campaign against illegal drugs, the President said, “there is always a time. There is always a timing, a time for everything, a time to be foul-mouthed.”
Pres. Duterte is known for expressing expletives as expression or a fiery response to accusations against his policies.
“Actually kung kilala mo ako, magtanong ka diyan sa mga kababata ko (if you know me, you ask my childhood friends) – Sonny (Dominguez), (Perfecto) Yasay, Bebot (Silvestre Bello), kasama ko naman ito for the long — iyan si Panelo, matagal kaming nagsama (we have been going together for so long – (Salvador) Panelo, we have been together for so long). Superman I can read your mind, ika nga,” he stressed.
The President however said he does not want anybody to read his mind because he cannot effectively do things anymore.
“But it’s all calibrated, it’s all about timing. Just watch our… for one thing in life, that’s what I have learned, miscalculation,” he pointed out. (PNA)/JMC/LILIAN C. MELLEJOR/LDP