PRESIENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday said he was just joking when he said he heard the voice of God telling him to stop cursing.
In a speech before members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Duterte said that nobody in his right mind would believe such a “preposterous” statement.
“There are really fools who say I should stop cursing, it’s getting tiresome,” he said in Filipino.
“After this trip, I was asked if I will be still be cursing. I looked out in the sky then everybody was asleep, snoring. Then someone whispering to me… will you stop cursing—I will bring down this plane. There were fools who believed it,” Duterte said, laughing.
Duterte said he wasn’t a bar topnocher, “but I’m not a fool to do that.”
“My favorite [thing] in Davao is to say something, then you’ll believe in it. Then I’ll take it back afterwards,” he said.
The foul-mouthed President, who once told US President Barack Obama to “go to hell,” said after arriving from a trip to Japan that he has promised God he would stop using profanity.
Duterte said he even asked the voice who he was, but only later realized that it was God.
“So, I promise God to—not to express slang, cuss words and everything,” he said at the time.
But asked if he would stop swearing at the United Nations, the United States, the European Union or Senator Leila de Lima, Duterte added: “There is always a time for everything.”
Duterte is well-known for using profanity when he is angry, and has cursed the Pope, Obama, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.