DAGUPAN CITY—Vice President Jejomar Binay and his daughter Senator Nancy Binay on Saturday expressed concern over reports that Filipino workers in Australia are facing loss of their jobs because of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s joke about the rape of an Australian lay missionary in 1989.
The Binays urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to look into the reports as Australian media continued to criticize Duterte with one news anchorman calling the Davao mayor an “evil bastard.”
Popular news presenter Paul Murray was the latest Australian celebrity to criticize Duterte for his now infamous joke about the rape and murder of Australian missionary Jacqueline Hamill in 1989.
“That evil bastard,” Murray exclaimed after running the video of Duterte’s comments during an April 12 campaign rally.
“I don’t know what’s worse: him saying it or other people actually laughing along with it,” Murray said. “It’s disgusting.”
“If he [Duterte] becomes president, tear up your tickets and don’t go to the Philippines,” Murray urged his viewers.
Murray also posted in his Facebook account describing Duterte as a “vile man” after similar criticism from international media organizations like the Australian Broadcasting Corp., British Broadcasting Corp., Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.
“I am asking the DFA to immediately look into reports that Filipino workers in Australia have been terminated by their employer because of the irresponsible and vulgar remarks made by Mister Duterte about wanting to rape a dead Australian missionary,” Binay said.
“It is unfortunate that dangerous statements are being said at the time when the Philippines is trying to be globally competitive. It is most unfortunate that women were at the receiving end of such a brutal joke,” Senator Binay told a news conference.
A message from a Filipino working in Australia has recently gone viral after it revealed that around 10 to 50 OFWs from Mindanao have been laid off.
The message stated that the Australian company decided it would no longer renew the contracts of all Filipino workers under its employ after Duterte poked fun at the rape and murder of Hamill.
“The owner of the company we’re working for is a very devout Christian and she felt insulted by Duterte’s comments against her fellow Aussie, our supervisor already told us today that the contracts of all of us 50 Filipino workers will no longer be renewed, that we will be replaced by Pacific Islanders,” said one of the workers who did not want to be identified.
“There are only 10 Duterte fans in our group but all of us are affected by the obscenity of their idol,” the worker said.
Some 2.4 million Filipinos are depending on their jobs abroad to provide for their families, according to the 2015 survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority, he said.
“I was bothered because the mere thought that he was looking at the dead woman yet he was thinking of touching her. It is indescribable. I cannot find a word for it,” the vice president’s daughter, Senator Binay, said.
“Because he saw how the Australian lay minister was brutally killed yet he had the urge to do it with that person,” she said.
“As a senator, it became my concern those he said about Australia and the United States. He wanted to sever ties with these allied nations. In one event that the Mexican ambassador was present, he also said offensive things against Mexico. Then apparently, it turned out Mexico has huge investments in the Philippines,” the senator said.
“We want to be globally competitive. We are not isolated from the rest of the world. We cannot afford that the words coming from someone who is running for President, technically, the words he uttered reflect his foreign policies that he would carry out,” Senator Binay said. “His pronouncements were somewhat dangerous.”