Malacañang on Wednesday said there is no need for the President to apologize for calling God stupid, saying the God of the Bible does not demand a public apology.
In a radio interview, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, who met with leaders of the Philippine Council for Evangelical Churches, said the religious group values the feelings of the President and would pray for healing and forgiveness for him.
“We’re here to provide pastoral care… We understand him……We’ll pray for him,” Roque quoted the PCEC as saying.
Evangelist Eddie Villanueva, meanwhile, said Duterte’s blasphemy against God invites calamities, not only on himself but the country he leads.
Villanueva, founder of the Jesus is Lord Church, urged the President to apologize to God or suffer the consequences.
“To insult God, to us is a kind of blasphemy in the highest order. The Bible is clear, when you slander God, you are inviting curses not only to yourself but to the entire nation,” Villanueva told the ANC news channel.
Villanueva furthered that Duterte’s persecution against God is an invite of His wrath.
The Philippines for Jesus Movement, of which Villanueva is a part, said they would hold a huge prayer rally if the President does not apologize.
“We are representing 10 million people. I don’t believe the President will ignore this. Because once he ignores the collective wisdom of the body of Christ, this may lead to a kind of huge prayer rally that will design first to intercede and to… so-called spiritual warfare. And worst I hope it will not lead to the imprecatory prayers,” Villanueva said.
Villanueva also added that Duterte violated the Constitution which acknowledges God in the preamble that he swore to when he assumed presidency.
“For the sake of argument, that is already a violation of the Constitution because the very Constitution, the soul of the Filipino people believes in God,” Villanueva said.
Roque said a God of love would not require a public apology.
“The President is aware of his mistake, if any, but I don’t think the God of the Bible will demand a public apology,” he said.
“He needs to ask for forgiveness, but that’s a personal thing,” he added in Filipino.
Roque, part of a three-person committee to talk with religious leaders, declined to provide more details on their meeting, saying he would report to the President first.
Roque acknowledged that Catholic leaders were as cool to the President as he was toward them.
In a radio interview, Roque said that since Duterte assumed the presidency in 2016, the Church had given the impression that they do not like Duterte and would not accept that their favored candidate did not win the presidential race.
The word war between the Church and the President started when the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines denounced the government’s anti-drug war because of its high death toll.
In the past, the President fumed that the Catholic Church is a bastion of misogyny and that its leaders engage in sinful acts.
“The President has his own way of expressing his spirituality and what he said does not need any interpretation. He never tried to hide that kind of language when he ran for president,” Roque said.
“Just accept it that he is that way, because when he asked for a mandate from the voters, he never tried to hide that,” he added.
Meanwhile, Pastor “Boy” Saycon Jr., a member of the three-man team formed to have a dialogue with religious groups, revealed that there is a possibility that the Catholic Church could be used to destabilize the Duterte administration.
“There are radical members of the Catholic Church but the leadership of the Church would not meddle in such destabilization efforts,” Saycon said in a radio interview.
However, he clarified that the threats to oust the President did not come directly from the Church but from organizations connected to foreign groups with foreign interests.
The Church played a key role in the ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and the corruption-tainted President Joseph Estrada in 2001.
The CBCP reiterated that the church will never instigate or plot to oust Duterte, but wants the killings to stop.
The President’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, asked the public not to heed her father’s “anti-Catholic remarks” because he is not a preacher, a priest, a pastor or an imam who can interpret the Bible of the Quoran.
In a post on social media, the mayor said the public should listen to the President only when it concerns work, and criticize him on his work, not his words.
An opposition lawmaker on Wednesday joined the snowballing criticism against Duterte’s attack on God.
“There is no excuse for attacking the foundations of an entire religion,” Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano said.
Alejano said the President’s insult was a grave act of disrespect to millions of Filipino Christians whose faith is part of their identity as a people.
“Duterte has destroyed our democratic institutions. He is waging a senseless war against the poor. Now, for whatever devious purpose, he is trying to discredit the Catholic faith. Regardless of the form, he is disrespecting the country and its citizens,” Alejano said.
“My God has been my refuge most especially during trying times. He has been the provider and rock of my life. Who is Duterte to mock my God, our God, when he can’t even fulfill his mandate and promises to the Filipino people?” he said.
Another Duterte critic, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, said the dialogue with religious leaders was nothing but a “crisis management move” to contain the outrage over Duterte’s tirades against God.
“It has no value at all because it was committed by a clearly unrepentant Duterte against all Christians and not just the Church leaders,” he said. With Maricel V. Cruz, Macon Ramos-Araneta and Evalea Casaljay