THERE has been a surfeit of outrageous statements since President-elect Rodrigo Duterte burst onto the scene of national politics some months ago, so it was deliciously ironic to listen to his designated Foreign Affairs secretary last week lecture United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to be “more circumspect” in his statements.
Incoming Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay was referring to Ban’s statement against Duterte’s suggestion that corrupt journalists who destroy reputations and get killed had it coming.
In his statement before the UN Correspondents Association, Ban said he was “extremely disturbed” by Duterte’s remarks.
“I unequivocally condemn his apparent endorsement of extra-judicial killing, which is illegal and a breach of fundamental rights and freedoms. Such comments are of particular concern in light of ongoing impunity for serious cases of violence against journalists in the Philippines,” Ban said.
Yasay based his objections on three points.
First, he said the remarks were taken out of context, and that Duterte had been misquoted.
Second, he said remarks made by the president-elect do not reflect official policy because Duterte has not yet been sworn in as president. Until such time, he added, Duterte was still the mayor of Davao City and a private citizen with no official voice on national issues.
Third, he said Ban should not have gone public and should have coursed his objections instead through official government channels.
The suggestion that Duterte was somehow misquoted or taken out of context is easy enough to check, since his videos of his press conferences are readily available online. While it is true that the president-elect never explicitly endorsed killing corrupt journalists, it is also true that statements to the effect that they got what they deserved might be misinterpreted by some that it is all right to use bullets instead of lawsuits to silence their critics.
Yasay’s second and third points are just simply silly, and even contradictory.
To say that Duterte’s statements as a president-elect should draw no reaction because they are not official policy is to also suggest that everything he said during the campaign should not have been taken seriously, simply because he had not yet won the presidency. This is ludicrous and to suggest this insults our intelligence—and makes Yasay look foolish.
Finally, in taking the UN secretary-general to task for not going through official government channels, Yasay contradicts himself because, as he points out, Duterte is not yet president; he’s just the mayor of Davao City. Was he suggesting that the UN chief channel his objections through the public information office of Davao City?
In this era of blunt and often profane talk that Duterte has ushered in, perhaps it is the president-elect’s minions who need a lesson on being circumspect. Speaking what is on your mind is fine, unless the ideas there are devoid of logic and common sense.
