MANILA, Philippines – Known for being-foul-mouthed, President Rodrigo Duterte has defended his cursing in public, saying it is not a crime.
Duterte said this as he parried criticisms that he was never a statesman three years after he assumed the presidency.
“I’d like to just be being a mayor so nothing much is expected of a mayor. And that has been the main complaint against me because they said, ‘he’s not a statesman. He talks in vulgar terms. And he — epithets, curses, and all,’” he said during the 7th Union Asia Pacific Regional Conference in Pasay City.
Duterte has served as Davao City mayor for more than 22 years before winning the presidency in 2016.
“You don’t get results when you do not say p***** i** mo. The press, international, they don’t like me. So when I say ‘p***** i** mo’, actually it’s a slang, we call it slang and it means son of a b****.,” he said.
The 74-year old President said cursing is not even a crime.
“You know, it’s not even a crime. The Supreme Court said when you say those words: epithets, curses and slang words in the heat of anger, you tend to use the mother you know — “F” and everything,” he said.
In March 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that the phrase “putang ina mo” was not slanderous.
Duterte even said that cursing is common in movies.
“I counted one movie with the word “F” and they — in one movie I purposely did the listing. They said it 400 times in a 1 hour 45 minutes movie of [Netflix],” he said.
Since he assumed the Presidency, Duterte has slammed his critics with vulgar words, even calling them stupid, crazy, empty-headed among others.
In the same speech, Duterte said he was “not schooled in statesmanship.”
“There is no course of that kind in the Philippines. Otherwise, I would have enrolled in it and improve on my demeanor,” he said.
“But I said I’ve been mayor and I seemed to — they do not like my barong folded this way because it’s a national attire. But I have been in this kind of characterization of my sartorial insanity and I just don’t follow rules,” he added. /gsg