Malacañang said Wednesday the “friendly challenge” of a Catholic bishop to President Rodrigo Duterte to walk around without security aides was “outright silly, childish and absurd.”
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo slammed Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani Jr. for daring the President to do what was possible, but something the Presidential Security Group would not allow.
“PRRD [Duterte] would have loved to accept the challenge but security protocols are observed for his protection as President”•a position carrying awesome responsibilities requiring him to attend to the problems of the nation”•a position that the good bishop has never held and might never assume in his lifetime,” Panelo said in a statement.
“[The challenge] was evidently made with the sole purpose of getting publicity for the challenger.”
Panelo said Duterte does not have to prove his courage and selfless public service to the people.
He said Duterte once patrolled Davao City alone, disguised as a taxi driver, to go after criminals who prowled at night when he was mayor there.
“He also went around the city alone in his motorcycle to examine what was happening around his turf at a time when Davao City was a killing field,” Panelo said.
He also mentioned the time when Duterte made headlines as he offered himself in exchange for a woman and a three-month-old baby who were being kept as hostages by Felipe Pugoy and his prison gang during the 1989 Davao hostage crisis.
“No person in this country has ever done offering his life in exchange for the freedom of a hostage victim except this President,” Panelo said.
“We thus ask the good bishop to be more judicious when it comes to oratories against the President, especially when it comes to challenging the latter in his element, so as to avoid being embarrassed.”
On Tuesday, Bacani urged the President to prove his “bravery” by doing the simple things that church leaders do every day.
“It’s simple. You know we bishops walk around, we don’t have bodyguards, bullet-proof vests, we don’t have security aids or with big entourages or guns. We’re like that,” Bacani told the Church-run Radio Veritas.
“My challenge to President Duterte, if he’s really brave, is simple, do what we do.”
Bacani has always been vocal about the Duterte administration, making him a target of the President’s spicy tirades in previous speeches.
In January 2017, Duterte claimed that the bishop had two wives like him, but Bacani shrugged it off, saying he would pray for the President.