Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said yesterday that President Duterte’s latest statements against the Catholic Church were referring to the institution as a whole and is not anti-Catholic.
“Basically he is referring to it as an institution. I don’t think we should take it as anti-Catholic. The President is addressing the situation where people seem to be highly moral and speak as if having a moral ascendancy when we can actually be working on all of this together,” Abella said in an interview over radio DZMM yesterday.
According to Abella, Duterte’s remarks were triggered by Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani who condemned Duterte and the Philippine National Police and denounced the anti-drug campaign as a bringer of death.
Abella said that Duterte agrees that faith can help with the rehabilitation of drug addicts but is not expecting an adversarial approach.
“The President is quite open to listening to other opinions. But perhaps what triggered him is the fact that perhaps the comment was coming from a moral approach,” he said.
Abella also noted that because everyone is now becoming very adversarial toward one another, some institutions seem to be unable to “accept the fact that something is being done” to address the country’s drug problem.
“Perhaps, where we are coming from is, let us be critical with one another but not coming from a place of moral ascendancy. Na parang ang sinasabi kayo masama kami hindi,” he said.
“This is the time where we can build together a nation worthy of the Filipino people and Filipino people worthy of the nation. In other words, let’s approach it na iisa lang tayo na iisa lang ang ha-ngarin natin na magkaroon tayo ng bayan na matiwasay, prosperous, and maaliwalas.”
During the oath-taking ceremony of newly promoted PNP officials in Malacañang Thursday, Duterte slammed the Catholic Church for criticizing his war on drugs while doing nothing to solve the country’s drug problems.
Duterte raised the different scandals, issue of corruption, and alleged homosexual activities inside the Church, saying it doesn’t have a moral ascendancy to lecture unless their own issues are resolved. (Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos)