PRESIDENTIAL spokesperson Ernesto Abella blamed President Rodrigo Duterte’s past faux pas in several public speaking engagements to the culture of Cebuanos whom he described as having a “very rough kind of humor” that is prone to failure of translation.
“Let’s put this way,” Abella said in an interview with the international news agency Al-Jazeera, “I understand that there’s a culture clash here, but I understand where he’s coming from because it’s a particular subculture.”
“The Cebuano subculture speaks in a very rough kind of humor,” the Palace official said, “but I understand, that’s why my task is to be able to interpret him and act as a conduit and bring out the true intention of the president.”
Abella, a former pastor who was pushed to the forefront of the Duterte administration, buckled under the questioning of British political journalist Mehdi Hasan who said “your job must surely be an impossible one having to spin for him.”
Hasan noted the instances when Duterte said “he’d kill his own kids if they took drugs, who makes jokes about wanting to rape women, who’s called the US ambassador a gay son of bitch and the Pope a son of a prostitute.”
The mild-mannered Abella could only blame Duterte’s “Cebuano upbringing” or that the remarks that were either made in Cebuano or Tagalog languages were difficult to translate.
“What’s was the true intention when [Duterte] said he wished he had raped the Australian missionary before she had been gang-raped?” Hasan asked.
“It was a joke, a joke that was difficult to translate,” said Abella, apparently taken aback by the question.
Abella later blamed the administration of former President Benigno Aquino for Duterte’s ongoing bloody war against narcotics traffickers.
“This would not be happening if it had been addressed a few years back,” Abella said “All these things that are happening right now are simply a cleaning-up that [should have been done] years back.”
More than 700 people have already been killed since Duterte took office on June 30. The controversial president also threatened to declare martial law if the courts interfered with the country’s “war on drugs.”
