Rody as Time’s most influential? He doesn’t think so
He may be leading TIME magazine’s poll on the world’s most influential people, but President Duterte said he doesn’t even have enough influence to sway his Cabinet secretaries’ decisions.
Duterte said he is not actually influential, but rather infamous for his penchant for cursing world leaders and institutions such as former US president Barack Obama, former United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon and the European Union, to name a few.
He said it is his cussing that may have catapulted him to the top in TIME’s survey.
“So I’m now more popular, right, most influential even if I can’t influ- ence? I can’t even influence my secretary of justice. I do not influence people,” he said, referring to Vitaliano Aguirre II.
Despite Duterte’s repeatedly saying that he would support the police
and military officers facing charges for killing suspected drug offenders, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) have filed charges against former police Supt. Marvin Marcos and his men for the killing of Albuera, Leyte mayor Reynaldo Espinosa last year inside the latter’s cell.
The President said he has come to realize that cursing world leaders could make him popular abroad.
“Curse them and you will get global attention,” Duterte said, and obliged by spewing expletives.
Speaking at Digong’s Day for Women at Malacañang last Friday, Duterte lamented he could not fulfill Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s birthday wish for him to act and talk like a statesman.
He claimed that when he read about statesmanship in a book, he realized it was Lacson who is a statesman and who should be president.
“Be the next president. I’m no statesman really,” he said. “Frankly, I’ve never graduated to being really a President.”
Duterte explained his actions and pronouncements deemed offensive by some women’s groups were not meant to offend. “I’m not a bad boy. You know me. When did I ever dishonor women?”
He stressed he is fond of joking around girls without being disrespectful. “I have daughters. I just love kidding around,” he pointed out.
Duterte said he even pokes fun at his police aides and his personal nurse during their weekly trips between Manila and Davao.
At one point during his speech, Duetrte declared that Vice President Leni Robredo might end up being president after all in case he meets an accident while going back to Davao.
“If my plane crashes tonight, Robredo will be the one standing before you in the next Women’s Day,” he said, partly in jest.
In which case, the public should let her determine how to solve the drug problem.
The Vice President had sent a video message to a UN body denouncing the killing of thousands in the administration’s war on drugs.
With him labeled as a killer, Duterte said Robredo could easily pass off as a saint – especially with her dainty image. “The sacred thing is my oath of office. I have to preserve the Filipino nation,” he said.
While Duterte may have made light of the “most influential” tag, his spokesman Ernesto Abella was not amused, citing an article on the poll portraying the President as having manipulated social media to allow him to get a clear lead in the survey.
Abella insinuated that the President’s change of tune on the issue of same sex marriage could have triggered the negative spin on Duterte’s standing in the TIME magazine poll.
“The radical agenda rears its ugly head by taking PRRD to task for apparently changing his stance about same sex marriage,” he said in a statement, without elaborating. PRRD is Duterte’s presidential initials.
It was the third paragraph of the TIME article that got Abella’s goat. “Duterte has been known to use social media to promote his agenda and has reportedly paid people to push him to popularity online,” the article read.
“Accusing him of using paid writers, they wantonly paint Mr. Duterte as manipulating social media to boost his popularity in the online TIME poll,” Abella said.
Abella attributed Duterte’s high ranking in the poll to his wide base of support from the Filipino masses.
“They totally do not get that the common people actually support him and his drive to build an independent Filipino nation – albeit still a rather socially conservative one,” he said.
“In the meantime, certain members of the establishment continue to manipulate media here and abroad to their advantage in the hope of regaining lost power and influence,” he added. –