Rude-y Duterte

Rude-y Duterte | Daily Tribune

Former President Rody Duterte was rude before the Senate Committee investigating extrajudicial killings, so says tail-ender Senator Risa Hontiveros. Duterte kept using the common expletive “pu*an#ina” during his testimony, to the chagrin of Risa.

But, of course, it was only Risa who was offended, woke and snowflake that she is, raised in a fantasy world of political correctness and feigned decency. The others in the committee were merely amused, if not indifferent. After all, before them was the Duterte they knew for six years: brash, candid, irreverent, inconoclastic even. Unfiltered (as GenZers would say). It was the Duterte Filipinos voted into office when he — before that a non-entity in national politics in 2016 — won the presidency in a most dramatic, come-from-behind fashion that shocked conventional political analysts.

Of course Risa, a former stage actress, was only playing another role, albeit not at all cute as when she was in her teens and part of the cast of “The Sound of Music.” Had she been more in touch with the real world, she would have realized that “pu*an#ina” is no longer considered an expletive, but a common expression that could indicate, among other things, frustration, especially in a lawyer whose dissertations of accepted legal principles would continuously go over the head of a senator who — although obviously a layman – would pretend to know the law.

In this day and age, that word means nothing anymore. This generation has been raised on expressions such as “what the f*ck?” and “f*ck you,” which colloquialisms carry neither the definition nor the connotation of its main word.

When you have the most popular female singer in the world, Taylor Swift, singing on free radio “f*ck it if I can’t have you,” with tens of millions of teens singing along and you say nothing, it would be hypocritical for Risa to pretend to cringe when the Filipino equivalent is used in front of her.

Yet Risa justifies her lame attempt at righteous indignation, saying that such language has no place in “her house.” But pardon me, Madame Senator, the Senate is NOT your house. It is the house of the millions of Filipinos who voted for your colleagues and for you. These are living, breathing Filipinos who regularly use the word “pu*an#ina” in their daily lives to convey dismay, elation, surprise, and many other things. Including their extreme irritation at your holier-than-thou attitude. That’s why I regularly hear the comment “pu*an#ina Risa yan!” on social media.

Many senators have used strong language during hearings, usually to vent their frustrations. Sen. Jinggoy used a lot of colorful language during the hearings on sexual harassment in show business; I should know, I was there. Enrile, in his time too, although his epithets were wrapped in more picturesque language.

In her sanctimonious harangues, Risa fails — or chooses to ignore — the fact that rudeness in the Senate comes in many forms. It was rude of her to call Alice Guo a spy, a crook and a human trafficker absent even a case in court for those crimes. It was rude of her to say that my client, Cassy Li Ong, was lying about her citizenship when her birth certificate bore the presumption of regularity under the law.

It was very rude of her to force another client, Pastor Quiboloy, to come to the Senate and be accused by those complaining against him of sex crimes, when the cases are already in court and it was useless to hold that hearing in the first place. It was rude of her to try to intimidate lawyers who were only doing their job, jobs that were mandated by the Constitution whenever legislative hearings are heard.

Risa will never get it. People prefer people who are “real” — those who say what they mean and mean what they say — than sugarcoated, cosmetically-enhanced Pharisees who are actually wolves in sheep’s clothing (if I may mix my Biblical metaphors). Unless she wakes up rather than stays woke, she will forever be at the tail-end, or even outside the winning circle.