Davao mayor slams archbishop

DAVAO City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio's lambasted Archbishop Socrates Villegas after he accused her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, for singlehandedly defacing the memory of the 1986 Edsa Revolution as a bloodless revolution through eight months of relentless killings under his presidency.

"You are truly, madly, deeply worse than a hundred President Dutertes," she said.

"How dare you say that we are trying to prostitute the meaning of Edsa. My father perfectly understood what the spirit of Edsa is, otherwise, he would not have told me to never forget that night of 31 years ago. And I now believe that he understands it better than you do," the younger Duterte said in a post on her Facebook page.

She said that Villegas' "selective moral standards" cannot define the real meaning of freedom.

"You preach about freedom as if you invented it, as if it is your gift to us. Let me tell you what freedom is. It is to live a life that is free from your selective moral standard. This is what the meaning of Edsa is,"

The mayor slammed the group of Villegas as a bunch of delusional hypocrites who failed to notice the hard truths said by President Duterte that many common people empathize with. She added that it is the group of Villegas who cannot accept what has happened to the country since 1986.

The Presidential daughter added that since 1986, until seven months ago, the nation has been hounded by corruption, crime, territorial war of gangs and drug lords, extrajudicial killings, narco-politics, terrorism, protracted rebellion, abuse of power in the government, political bickering and the entry of foreign mafias.

"It surely did not start when President Duterte took office. He won the Presidency precisely because you ignored what was wrong with this world. All you desired was to put into power a leader who walks and talks like you -- someone who is definitely not Rodrigo Duterte," Duterte said.

Duterte-Carpio also wondered why Villegas is only saying these things now, as after all he is a supporter of a different party ever since.

"When your friend failed as a President, I cannot remember you calling it the rape of Edsa. You just swept it under your glitzy rugs and you moved on, back to business -- back to acting as if you can save us all from hell," she said.

Duterte-Carpio recalled that she learned the importance of Edsa 31 years ago through her father, who woke them up on the eve of February 25, 1986, the eve of the Edsa Revolution.

"I have a memory of myself standing on the stairs of the San Pedro church bell tower, listening to the incessant ringing of the bells. I did not understand what was happening, but I surmised that it must be something very important because my father had to get me out of bed to watch cheering and partying adults on the streets," she said.

"Fast forward to 2017 and I would now say that the celebration of the 1986 Edsa revolution is important but only to commemorate what we did for our country on a certain period in our history," she added.

Duterte also told Villegas that hers is not a biased commentary because she is not a fan of the President.

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