Bramovich: Merry Christmas Mr Duterte, you bloody hypocrite

In a very brief Christmas message to his country, “The Punisher” president shared his hopes for peace and progress as the Philippines moves into 2017.

The entire “greeting” – delivered in an oddly-soporific monotone – lasted a little over 40 seconds.

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“My beloved countrymen, as we remember the birth of our savior Jesus Christ, let us celebrate with genuine compassion and desire to foster hopes in our hearts.

“This Yuletide season, I wish for peace, order, progress for our country.
Greeting you all, a very merry Christmas, my family, my fellow workers in government and let us all look forward for the coming of a new year with great happiness.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsT2KiNlabQ

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Of course, as so many of Mr Duterte’s statements do, it opened with a contradiction. Back in May of this year Rody was quoted as saying that he believed in God but not religion. There can be no “saviour Jesus Christ” if you don’t believe in religion. That said, it’s a nice way to keep the masses happy, I suppose.

The contradictions continue. With him wishing peace, order and progress for a country in which thousands of people have died as a direct result of his words. A country which, under the leadership of this man, has broken crucial relationships with all of its major allies.

One word that was conspicuous by its absence from the president’s statement was “prosperity”. One could assume that this omission was deliberate, considering that he has just sunk the country into billions of dollars of debt while giving away huge amounts of natural resources to his new money masters in Beijing.

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Of course, in classic Duterte style there were two Christmas messages, the other was released a earlier in the year. That had a very, very different tone:

So, on the one hand he wishes the people of the Philippines all the best for the holiday season… and on the other he threatens people with a festive bullet to the back of the head. Ho ho ho.

Rather than offer the country’s drug addicts and criminals positive help to reform themselves, he promises that if they don’t change their ways (largely the result of poverty and desperation) this Christmas will be their last. I suppose that ties in nicely with the lack of the word “prosperity” in the official message.

I suspect that what the country is going to get for Christmas this year (and will continue to get for the foreseeable future) is more contradictory bile spewing from the mouth of the president.

I’m just wondering who he’s going to threaten tomorrow… before apologising for his “joke” the next day. Political commentators maybe? Oh…

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