PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday supported the criticism of his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, on the latest remark of Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Archbishop Socrates Villegas on the Edsa Peoples Power Revolution anniversary.
In a speech delivered at the turnover of a drug rehabilitation facility in Davao del Norte, the President warned Villegas of issuing derogatory remarks against him because his "sarcastic" daughter would be there to defend him.
"Here is Soc Villegas, having an issue with Inday Sara now, as seen on Facebook. Inday is very sarcastic, she is very impertinent. Good luck when you would pick a fight with her. She was like after the drift of my mindset paradigm," Duterte said in Cebuano.
Villegas, in an open letter addressed to the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, took a swipe at the Duterte administration for "reversing" the celebration of the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.
Villegas said he was in pain to witness that the glorious of days of the Edsa uprising is "now dimmed."
"The glory now flickers in the darkness of fear and terror again. The songs of peace now drowned by cuss words of hate that invite murder. The bloodless revolt now stained by the blood in our streets and street gutters," the CBCP head said.
"Four days of bloodless revolution! Wow!... The Edsa spirit is pure worth celebrating always. It is people who have raped it," he added.
Sara Duterte then came to her father's defense, calling Villegas as "truly, madly, deeply worse than a hundred President Dutertes."
She said the President "perfectly understood" the Edsa spirit and stressed that her father "understands it better" than Villegas.
She then said Villegas belonged to "a bunch of delusional hypocrites" who failed to recognize that many still believed the President.
"How dare you say that we are trying to prostitute the meaning of Edsa?" she said. "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 te meaning of Edsa is." (SunStar Philippines)