What wrong?

DO NOT hesitate to attack me, criticize me, if I do wrong in my job.

Did we hear you right, President Duterte?

I am not at liberty to be angry at anybody. It is your sworn duty to ask questions. It is also my obligation to my people for the money spent in this trip and for all the things that cost the Filipino, I have to make an official report. Wala akong galit sa inyo (I am not angry with you).

Is that really you speaking, President Duterte?

Every time you press that button in your camera, you record history of this country kaya importante kayo (that's why you are important),

Aww, really, really, President Duterte, are your arrival statements in Davao City for real?

Why, but a day before, in Indonesia, you accused the media of "spinning stories several times over" and excising relevant facts and telling lies to crucify you.

For whatever reason, the things you say, they (the media) can spin stories several times over. If they are after you, they would — I said — make it appear to be the worst of you. Kaya ako, bantay sa press (So I watch out the press). They can spin. They will spin everything to make you bad.”

And now you’re telling the media not to hesitate to attack you?

Of course, there is the condition to your dare – if I do wrong in my job. And that takes the whole cake, icing and crumbs unspared, so to speak.

So, President Duterte, when were you ever wrong in your job?

Not when you proffered the shame list of politicians, judges and policemen you said are involved in illegal drugs, notwithstanding that a number of those in the list were long dead.

Not when you threatened the Supreme Court with martial law, even if you may have misread that the 1987 Constitution provides that the declaration of martial law can be scrutinized and reviewed by the High Court, to wit: "The Supreme Court may review, in an appropriate proceeding filed by any citizen, the sufficiency of the factual basis of the proclamation of martial law or the suspension of the privilege of the writ or the extension thereof, and must promulgate its decision thereon within thirty days from its filing. (Article VIII, Section 18).

Not in your execution of the war against drugs, no matter the number of bodies falling like flies, human rights issues be damned.

That’s why I said, ‘[W]hat crime against humanity?’ In the first place, I’d like to be frank with you, are they (drug users) humans? What is your definition of a human being? Tell me.

There, precisely, what human rights have they who are not humans. So right, you are. 

Not when you accused the United Nations of having done nothing for this country, despite the hard facts to the contrary – from the health services of WHO to the nutrition interventions of the WFP, from the UNDP Recovery Program in the immediate wake of the Yolanda devastation to the FAO support for fishery and agriculture rehabilitation – all in billions of the almighty $.

So take us out of your organization. You have done nothing. Where were you here the last time? Never. Except to criticize. When have you done a good deed to my country?

No, President Duterte, you were never wrong in shoving that to the face of UN.

Why, even in the matter of that pu…ina directed at President Obama, you did not do anything wrong.

You can review the tapes. I did not say [pu…ina]. May sinabi ako, pero (I said something, but) not in relation to Obama. I said, ‘Do not disrespect me. Son of a whore, we will be wallowing in the muds like pigs if you do that.’ That’s what I said.

To whomever, matters not. Just as you never said pu…ina to the Pope. Maybe, not even tarantado to Ban Ki Moon. You did not say it, President Duterte, so what, how, why, and where can be any wrong there?

So, what is there to attack? To criticize, about one who has done nothing wrong in his job? Indeed, about President Duterte who can do no wrong?

To still engage in criticism then will be nothing less than “spinning stories several times over.” That ain’t no journalism, not even of the yellowest kind.

Yeah, President Duterte is right. As always.

Oh, ye god!