WHERE is God in the midst of rapes and killings?
President Rodrigo Duterte posed that question during his speech delivered at the oath taking of the new officials of Malacañang Press Corps, Malacañang Cameramen Association, and Presidential Photographers Association held Monday at the Palace's Heroes Hall.
"My God, where are you? I believe in God but it is my perpetual question to Him: where were you when we needed you?"
Duterte posed the question following the myriad violence that is happening in the country, as well as in strife-torn countries like Syria.
Duterte said that every president would not resort to imposing death penalty, given two considerations: "One, because of the Catholic church, second is the bleeding hearts because only God can heal."
"The problem here, I ask you: What if there is no God?" he added.
The President also questioned God for his absence when a child or a woman was raped and killed by lawless elements.
"When a one-year-old, 18-month-old baby taken from the mother's arm, brought under a jeep, and raped and killed. So where is God?" Duterte said.
"And in Syria, women, women and children, and women who do not want to have sex with the Isis, they're burned. So where is God?"
Duterte lamented that people have to experience sufferings even if they do not want to.
"Is it enough to say that at the end of the day, at the end of the world, He shall come to judge the living and the dead? What will be the purpose of all of that if the sorrows and ignominy have already been inflicted upon the human beings," Duterte asked. (Sunnex)