Pope Francis is sure to change his mind of his perception of detained senator Leila de Lima, once President Rodrigo Duterte shows the Pope a copy of the senator’s supposed “sex video” which allegedly linked her to the illegal drug trade.
“The braggart one, she received a rosary from the Pope. Find me a video of her and I’ll show to the Pope. If he see’s it, maybe he himself will be leaving the Papacy — son of a b****, this is too much,” [Tapos yung isa, yung hambog bigyan pa ng rosary ni pope. Si Pope naman, hanapan niyo nga ako ng video, ipakita ko kay Pope. Baka magtingin pa si Pope magalis pa pagka-Pope yan. P…ina sobra na ito. I am just human.]President Rodrigo Duterte said in half-jest during an anti-corruption summit in Pasay City.
While he said that he was simply jesting, Duterte however, left a veiled threat against the 80-year-old Argentinian pontiff not to criticize him or get a tongue lashing from him.
“I am joking, Pope—but whenever you do a thing, if you criticize me—I can criticize you 10 times over,” he said.
He also slammed De Lima’s supposed posturing that she is a “prisoner of conscience.”
“Prisoner of conscience? Libog yan [That’s lust]),” he added.
Last week, Pope Francis sent De Lima a “beautiful” rosary handed over from the country’s papal nuncio—a gift that the lady senator said inspires her to continue her battle, according to her office.
De Lima, who earlier wrote a letter to the Roman Pontiff just before her 58th birthday, asked for the gift of prayer “for me and the Filipino people.”
Last 2015, Duterte made the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics the object of an expletive as he scored the massive traffic that resulted from his papal visit here.
“Gusto kong tawagan, ‘Pope putang ina ka, umuwi ka na. ‘Wag ka nang magbisita dito. (Pope, you son of a bitch, go home. Don’t visit here anymore.)”
Shortly after winning, Duterte then toned down his tough talk and personally written a letter to the Pope thanking him for visiting the Philippines in 2015 and stress the value of Manila’s ties to the Vatican.
Duterte would often criticize the Catholic church, including priests and bishops critical of his drugs war, accusing them of homosexuality, corruption and of abusing children.