PHILIPPINES LEADER SLAMS BISHOPS

We have to be open and sensitive to people, say top officials

MANILA: President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday denounced bishops in the Catholic-majority country as “sons of b ***** s,” renewing his attacks on the church that has criticised him over his bloody war on drugs.

Duterte, who launched his campaign against drugs when he took ofice in mid-2016, remains hugely popular but doubts about the campaign, in which thousands of people have been killed, have been growing.

“Only I can say bishops are sons of b ***** s, damn you. That is true,” Duterte said in a speech during a groundbreaking ceremony for a school north of the capital, Manila.

Duterte did not mention any particular reason for his criticism of the church, which included a suggestion that most bishops are homosexual.

“Most of them are gay,” he said. “They should come out in the open, cancel celibacy and allow them to have boyfriends.”

Duterte, who is not a regular churchgoer, said early in his presidency that he was sexually abused by a priest when he was a boy.

The Roman Catholic Church is facing clerical sexual abuse scandals in various parts of the world, although there have been no major cases in the Philippines.

Francis Lucas, an oficial with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, called for sensitivity.

“We have to be more sensitive to the sensitivities and sensibilities of others out of respect,” Lucas told Reuters.

The president’s crackdown on drugs retains much support but some sectors of the church have become increasingly vocal about the killings, with calls for justice and offers of sanctuary to drug users.

Some 5,000 people have been killed in police anti-drugs operations in Duterte’s anti-drug drive.

Police reject accusations that the killings were executions, saying drug peddlers and users were killed in shootouts, and police acted in self-defence.

About 80 per cent of the more than 100 million people of the Philippines are Roman Catholic.

ANTI-GRAFT FIGHT

Meanwhile, Duterte has amended an executive order strengthening the Presidential Anti-corruption Commission (PACC) in its mandate to go after Malacanang Palace oficials involved in corruption during his term.

Among others, the amendment allows Duterte to directly investigate or hear an administrative case against any presidential appointee linked to corruption and other scandals, which he made as a campaign commitment to eradicate along with illegal drugs and rampant criminality.

In addition, the order allows Duterte to authorise any of the agencies under the ofice of the president to do the investigation on his behalf amid his earlier warnings he would not hesitate to dismiss corrupt cabinet oficials and other presidential appointees.

Recently, the agency came into the limelight when Secretary Silvestre Bello of the Department of Labour and Employment announced he would ask Duterte to dismiss a PACC commissioner for alleged grave abuse of authority.

The PACC commissioner earlier announced they were investigating for corruption Bello as well as Isidro Lapena, the head of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and lawyer Leonor Oralde Quintayo, the chief of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

It was not made known, however, whether Bello, acknowledged as a Duterte ally, has made his threat to ask the president to dismiss the PACC commissioner.