HE WAS late yet those who were forced to wait for him cheered him on, even chanting his name despite his talking about things not remotely related to the event, cracking jokes we’ve already heard, and letting out curses left and right.
Such is the appeal of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Love him. Hate him. The guy can capture a crowd.
I’ve seen how athletes react to speeches by politicians in the opening ceremony of sports meets; those who don’t tune him or her out roll their eyes whenever the speaker blabbers on about things unrelated to them. During an opening of a provincial meet in an election year that a governor attended, some muttered, “Di pa man mi ka-botar, ngano sige man siya yawyaw?”
It wasn’t the case last Saturday. The crowd, the athletes, cheered him on and by cheering him on, that’s directly agreeing with him. Why? That’s for sociologists and political analysts to find out.
I just noticed a couple of things, though. During his PNG speech, President Duterte explained his curses and threats to kill folks as “kung maglagot ko...storya lang man na.” And for someone who has often used that line, I interpret it as simply”, “It’s just talk, it doesn’t mean a thing.”
An hour later in another event, he said he’d kill anyone, after letting out his trademark P***** i** who’d poison Pinoys with drugs. If an eye roll was a PNG event, I know some people in social media who should be representing their LGUs.
The thing is, most of the things or statements he uttered after “p**** i**” have been interpreted as policies and have, let’s say, made life colorful in the Philippines. Storya ra diay dapat to?
I remember a Davaoeno colleague saying that before, whenever Duterte talked in a press conference, most of those statements didn’t see print because they know “it’s just talk” and they focus on the “meat” of his statements, usually issued in the early part of his press con.
Yes, you could say that that could have emboldened him to maintain that style (“Hey, look at clueless Manila media focusing on his outrageous statements.”) But while we could ignore the mayor’s statements about FBI and CIA conspiracies about a Davao hotel bombing, such statements can’t be ignored because he’s now the President.
But I digress. Hey, in my defense, he did, too.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that he said nothing noteworthy during his long delayed speech at the PNG, and keeping true to character, it happened unexpectedly (for me). While the words “I declare the games open” are supposed to signal the end of a speech, for Digong it was just an appetizer.
After hushing the applause to say that he wasn’t finished yet, Digong doubled what was already the biggest cash prize to date in the PNG, making the overall champion this year P10 million richer.
The significance of that may be lost to some, but it certainly wasn’t for LGUs like Cebu Province and Cebu City who take their sports programs and PNG campaigns seriously and have prepared for this for months.
I just hope, though, that his statement about doubling the prizes wasn’t and wouldn’t part of his “storya ra na” policy.
Coz, p***** i** that would be a real disappointment.