Iglesia ni Duterte? Believe in it—Rody

Maasin City, Leyte—President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday lashed out at those who criticized him for his attacks on God, saying people should believe in the new religion, the Iglesia of Duterte.

“Why do you get mad if I hit your god? God is what you conceive him to be. We all have different gods,” Duterte said in a rambling speech in Maasin City, Leyte.

“They said god will put me in hell,” he said, speaking in Visayan throughout Iglesia most of his talk. “That’s crazy. My god has no heaven or hell. Do you think god is stupid to create hell? What’s my sin? Womanizing?”

“God is all forgiving. God does not know how to put people in hell... Even purgatory is not true. There is heaven, but do not believe that St. Peter guards the gates,” he said. 

Referring to the biblical reference that Peter denied Jesus Christ three times before the cock crowed, Duterte added: “If I chance upon him and the gates are filled with chicken shit, I will punch him. What kind of guard are you? Look at the shit of your chickens!”

The President acknowledged that there were ongoing talks to smooth relations with the , which has condemned his attacks on God and which has been critical of the administration’s bloody war on drugs.

“I don’t like a fight. I will have a dialog with the CBCP,” Duterte said. “The President—[Archbishop Romulo] Valles—is from Bohol. We understand each other. He is very kind. As long as he works on his own and I work on my own, we will have no problem. If your heaven is not true, come here to my heaven. And if my heaven is not true, let me enter your heaven.”

Duterte denied allegations that his administration had anything to do with the killing of three priests in a span of six months.

“Every time a priest gets killed, they say it is because of his advocacy against the government. Why should I kill a priest? My God,” he said, while suggesting that one of the victims had engaged in illicit sex, as evidenced by the messages on his cellphone.

“There was one priest who got killed. Based on our investigation, he had women, lots of women. In the phone, there were messages: ‘Are you naked now?’ Dirty talk,” the President said, then made moaning sounds to simulate sex to the laughter of the crowd.

Returning to his theme of a personal god, he said: “The god I know I learned from my parents, not from the school. That’s the god I know. Not the gods of those who use god as a platform, to warn of karma… My god is braver. I will let my god hit your god.”