MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte kissed the ground where the twin blasts occurred in Jolo, Sulu to honor those who were killed “for no reason at all.”
“That’s why when I visited the blast, and thank you for sharing with me the gesture lumuhod ako, hinalikan ko yung semento to where my soldiers and the countless…at saka yung mga Tausug na walang, the lives snapped out for no reason at all,” Duterte said in a taped speech to troops aired Monday.
Duterte visited the blast site in Jolo, Sulu on Sunday and also delivered a speech to troops and vowed his support in ensuring that terrorists “will have no future” in the country.
As seen in photos shared by the President’s former aide and now Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, Duterte knelt and kissed the ground while wearing a face mask.
“Kaya ako lumuhod, hinalikan ko yung lupa, kasi hindi man lang nakapagtawag ng Allah, o nakapag sign of the cross before dying,” Duterte said.
(The reason why I knelt and kissed the ground, they were not able to call on Allah or make a sign of the cross before dying.)
President Duterte kneels and kisses the ground of the blast site in Jolo, Sulu on Sunday. (Photo from Senator Bong Go)
During his visit to Jolo, Sulu, the President also offered flowers at the blast site and went to Kuta Heneral Bautista hospital to visit soldiers who were wounded after the explosion.
The President admitted it would be difficult to address the roots of the blast, saying it would take “more than a generation” to solve it.
“May dalawang taon pa ako, aywan ko kung ano ang magawa ko talaga,” Duterte admitted.
(I have two years left, I don’t know if I will be able to do anything.)
“But you know, when you go into fighting, may galit na yan, mahirap ito aregluhin kasi lahat may sugat na sa puso and it would take more than a generation to do this.”
(But you know, when you go into a fight, there’s anger and it’s hard to settle this because everyone has wounds in their heart and it would take more than a generation to do this.)
“I hope that anyone of my children would become a politician, maski barangay captain lang, that he’d be able to do something about this problem, of the Moro and the Christians,” he went on.
On August 24, an explosion shook Barangay Walled City in Jolo where a military truck was parked, Western Mindanao Command commander Major General Corleto Vinluan Jr. said.
Another explosion occurred an hour later about a hundred meters away from the site of the first blast.