DUTERTE SAYS SORRY FOR 'GUTTER LANGUAGE' - Please Share

DUTERTE SAYS SORRY

FOR 'GUTTER LANGUAGE'

By Manny Piñol

Presidential frontrunner Rody Duterte, humbly admitting that he has not yet learned the refinements expected of a national political figure, today offered his apologies to those who were offended by the "gutter language" he used in relating a rape incident which happened 27 years ago.

"Gutter language yan. Sorry kung di nagustuhan ng iba," TV5 reporter Gem Avanceña quoted Duterte as saying in a post on her Facebook page today.

(That's gutter language. i'm sorry if I offended people.)

"That's a cliché, ganun talaga magsalita ang mga ano... Galing ako dyan sa baba eh. Di naman ako anak ng conyo," Duterte said in the interview made by Avanceña.

(I came from down there. That's how we speak. I'm not a son of the elite.)

While Duterte is a son of the former governor of Davao Province and a public school teacher, he learned the way and the language of the streets because of his association with neighborhood toughies.

As a high school student, Duterte was expelled from the Ateneo de Davao for a series of misdemeanors and admits that he finished high school in seven years. He finished law at San Beda College in Manila and became a tough government anti-graft prosecutor.

Duterte drew flak after a video clip of his lengthy speech in the Amoranto Stadium rally in Quezon City on April 12 showed him using "gutter language" in relating the rape and subsequent killing of an Australian missionary by inmates in the Metrodiscom Jail in Davao City in 1989, one year after he was elected mayor of the city.

The Australian missionary and 16 others were held hostage by a group of inmates led by Felipe Pugoy, who a few months earlier escaped from the Davao Penal Colony.

Pugoy upon his escape from the Davao Penal Colony located in Davao del Norte, a few kilometres away from the city, held hostage passengers of a bus.

Duterte negotiated for the hostages release by offering himself in exchange which Pugoy accepted but only after he had a knife poked at the mayor's throat.

Duterte later persuaded Pugoy to surrender and he and his companions were brought to the Metrodiscom Jail.

A few months later he and his fellow inmates held hostage the missionaries killing five of them, including the female missionary who was raped.

Duterte personally led the team which assaulted the hostage takers and saved 12 missionaries.

All the hostage takers, including Pugoy, were killed by Duterte and his police team.

In previous occasions, Duterte recounted the rape and murder of the missionary in the same way he related it in the Amoranto Stadium but this did not generate the same controversy as it did now that he is running for President.

Duterte also stirred controversy in the past because of his cussing which was highlighted by the Papal gaffe.

He also apologised for that and there was a marked reduction in his use of profanities.

Close friends of Duterte have advised him to be careful with his choice of words now that he is running for the highest political position in the country.

(Photos downloaded from the Facebook page of Gem Avanceña of TV5 show Duterte in t-shirt and rubber slippers in front of his home in Doña Luisa Subdivision, a low-cost housing project, in Matina, Davao City yesterday.)