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BACOLOD CITY – A new book on President Duterte’s jokes was released on March 30.
The book “Jokes Only: A Book on Duterteisms” was written and self-published by Dr. Crispin C. Maslog, a former journalist of the Agence France-Presse and journalism professor of Silliman University in Dumaguete City and the University of the Philippines – Los Baños.
The book contains 64 jokes that President Duterte uttered during his campaign for the presidency in 2016 and in the next five years during his press conferences and public engagements.
“Remember those days? It was governance by shock and awe. He spewed the language of the streets, as he ordered his police to go after drug addicts and slay them in their homes and neighborhoods,” Maslog said.
“He was swearing and undermining the morals of our youth, insulting everybody — journalists, the Pope and Church leaders, President Obama and world leaders, human rights activists, and everyone within sight who disagreed with him or stood in his way,” he added.
Maslog said he noticed that President Duterte looked tired in public recently.
“After five years of insulting everybody, including God and the Pope, he seems to have mellowed down. And he has stopped joking, perhaps because people no longer laugh at his so-called jokes. Or perhaps now he wants people to forget the sins of his administration, because it is election time and his daughter is running for vice president?” he said.
A random online survey Maslog conducted a month ago showed that 85 percent of Filipino millennials think President Duterte’s jokes had a “very bad impact” on the youth.
“President Duterte should be made to account for the damage he has inflicted on our nation’s morals,” Maslog said.
“We should reject the people he implicitly or explicitly endorses in the coming elections. We should not allow him to just slip into the night without doing penance for his sins,” he added.
Maslog said his book will be available at New Day Publishers on E. Rodriguez Avenue and Solidaridad Bookstore on Padre Faura, Manila, or he can be reached at cmaslog@hotmail.com.