Duterte has a dirty mouth, but he didn’t really insult Obama
Yonden Lhatoo takes a closer look at the Filipino leader’s spat with the US president, and argues that Rodrigo Duterte is not exactly calling people nasty names
The Philippines’ notoriously foul-mouthed president bit off more than he could chew this week when he insulted his American counterpart. But did Rodrigo Duterte really hurl abuse at Barack Obama and his mother?
His exact words were: “You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you.”
Duterte was venting in his usually obnoxious manner at the prospect of a human-rights lecture by Obama, at a regional forum, on his murderous, vigilante war against drugs.
It’s not only in the Philippines that the ubiquitous phrase insinuating that one’s mother is involved in the oldest profession in the world is often used as an exclamation, like “dammit”. It’s liberally applied to punctuate sentences for added impact, rather than single out anyone for a direct personal attack.
You can apply the same rationale to explain why Duterte seems to be constantly insulting everyone and their mums, literally, in this manner. And why his devoutly Catholic electorate didn’t find it particularly sacrilegious when he reserved similar language for Pope Francis after being stuck in a Manila traffic jam while the pontiff was visiting.