HOW MUCH LONGER COULD BISHOPS, PRIESTS BEAR DUTERTE POTSHOTS ?

WHAT IF SOME RABID FAN OR FANS OF THE PRESIDENT WOULD NOT SEE IT AS A “HYPERBOLE” OR EXAGGERATION AND HEED HIS PRODDING TO “ROB” THE CATHOLIC CHURCH LEADERS AND “KILL THEM”?

Hey, you bums there, when your bishop passes by, he has lots of money. Son of a bitch. Kill him.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE, JAN. 11, 2019

Last week, two days in a row, President Duterte lashed at the Catholic Church clergy, this time focusing on the bishops: Wednesday, Jan. 9, at the birthday party of Masbate Gov. Antonio Koh and Thursday, Jan. 10, at the Bulakan, Bulacan public school ground-breaking ceremony.

The tenor was the same: bishops are rich sons-of-bitches. The additional touch, not included before in his assault on the clergy, was the violence: “rob and kill the bishops.”

“Hyperbole, exaggeration, for dramatic effect,” said Salvador Panelo, the president’s spokesman, last December. But in the previous salvos, there was no suggestion of mayhem and murder.

The new eruption of presidential wrath, or humor, has come after previously calling the church hypocritical, its God “stupid” and the Holy Trinity “silly” and accusing a priest of pocketing church collections and giving them to his family.

Could be coincidental but the fresh attacks, this time on church officials, came after the Inquirer hailed three bishops among its Filipinos of the Year, calling them the “Brave Bishops.” One of the three, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, didn’t say brave words in reaction to Duterte’s new volley of fire. Pabillo quoted, “Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation.” The bishops’ conference or group still has to respond; previously, it urged prayer for the President instead. At least, unlike in the ancient days of the faith, priests and bishops are not being fed to the lions or, the modern version, struck down by motorcycle-borne killers.