PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s political strategists are finally getting it. The president’s continuous verbal assault on the Catholic Church to the point of calling the said church’s God as stupid is doing them more harm than good, especially around a year before next year’s midterm elections. More than that, it is pushing Catholic Church leaders to act up against the administration.
The situation is different now from when Duterte was new to the presidency. People are getting tired of the jokes, the insults and the cursing. And the president’s timing in launching the verbal assault against the Catholic Church and God is bad. It came after three Catholic priests were killed by unidentified assassins and another priest was attacked but survived.
The killings opened up the eyes of the faithful to the fact that the threats against the Catholic Church are real. That was when the worries began to form. Then came the president’s verbal assault on the church and its God. The faithful who were initially willing to give the Duterte administration the benefit of the doubt are starting to take notice. They have been awakened, so to speak.
Then there is the current milieu outside of religion. The economic managers of the Duterte administration may not admit it but the Philippine economy is headed for a downturn, if it isn’t in a downturn yet. The inflation rate soared above the projected level after the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law that is meant to generate revenues for the government’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program.
Other economic indicators are not good. The Philippine Stock Exchange is sinking, so too the value of the peso against the dollar. Even the president admitted that our economy is in the doldrums. Merriam-Webster.com defines doldrums this way: state or period of inactivity, stagnation or slump. In sum, the country is not in a good place economically, sparking worries.
Situations like this spark restiveness. That’s why the timing of the president’s verbal assault on the Catholic Church is not good. This can be gleaned from the reaction of the faithful to that “God is stupid” line by Duterte. The Catholics, who are the majority in this country, are beginning to speak out. Those who belittled the power of the Catholic Church are starting to feel it.
Now, the president has backtracked. Yesterday, Malacañang announced the formation of a team to hold dialogue with the Catholic Church, It is composed of Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ernesto Abella and “self-proclaimed” civic leader Pastor Saycon. The team has been tasked to reach out to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches.
The Duterte camp is obviously feeling the heat. But the key there is the president’s actions in the coming days. He should stop the verbal assault and humble himself by mending fences with Church leaders. But that is easier said than done. The damage has been done and the Catholic faithful have been awakened.
They are like the proverbial toothpaste that has been pushed out of the tube and which is already difficult to put back in.