Now it can be told.
As a graduating student of law at San Beda College in Manila in 1972, presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte figured in a shooting incident on the school campus.
Duterte himself told the story at a campaign rally in Iloilo City on Wednesday, drawing applause from the crowd.
An Inquirer source from the Lex Talionis fraternity identified Duterte’s victim as Octavio Goco. Both Duterte and Goco were members of the fraternity.
“I was a graduating student at San Beda when I shot a man,” Duterte said in Filipino. “I waited for him, I told myself I’ll teach him a lesson.”
Duterte said Goco bullied him over his being a Visayan. Muslim students also suffered from Goco’s bullying, he said.
Duterte said they were in the corridor and Goco was pushing people around.
“I said you son of a bitch if I get hit I will shoot you. I was hit in the nose. Aaah! Bang,” he said.
Goco was hit, but not killed, according to a Lex Talionis member who asked not to be identified.
The incident was settled because the school authorities did not want to drop him, the fraternity member said. But Duterte was not allowed to join the graduation rites.
Another source from Lex Talionis said the incident was “hushed up” by the fraternity with the help of school officials who did not want a scandal.
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) roster includes Octavio Goco of Malabon City, who was admitted to the bar in 1975.
Goco later migrated to the United States, where he died in 2004.
Duterte said he returned home to Davao City by boat to avoid the authorities, who were looking for him.
A few years later, Duterte established the Lex Talionis chapter at Ateneo de Davao with another San Beda graduate, lawyer Alberto Sipaco Jr.
Sipaco would later become the chair of the Commission on Human Rights in the Davao region, while Duterte would be elected mayor of Davao City.
Duterte has drawn widespread criticism for his account of how he killed 16 inmates at the Davao jail who seized and raped several female missionaries, including an Australian.
In a campaign speech in Quezon City on April 12, Duterte said he was mad because the Australian missionary was raped by the inmates.
“The body was brought outside and it was covered. I looked at her face, son of a bitch … she looked like a beautiful American actress,” he said
“Son of a bitch, what a waste. I was thinking they lined up and raped her. I was angry because she was raped, that’s one thing. But she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first,” he said.
Duterte has refused to apologize for the rape joke. With a report from Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Inquirer Visayas
READ: WHAT WENT BEFORE: Davao Death Squad