To mark two years as president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte has taken on his biggest sparring partner yet. God now joins the likes of former US president Barack Obama and the UN as targets in Duterte's ranting. It would be laughable if he hadn't spent his presidency turning the country into Revelations, where even priests are being gunned down in the streets.
'Adam ate [the apple], then malice was born. Who is this stupid God? This son of a bitch is stupid if that's the case. You created something perfect and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work,' Duterte was reported as saying in his hometown of Davao City last month. His comments sound more like a young student set to fail religion class than the leader of one of the world's most populous Catholic-majority countries.
Rebukes were swift but he doubled down. He was merely insulting the God of his critics, not his own. Their God is stupid, his is full of common sense. He also promised to resign if evidence of the existence of a Christian God could be produced. Duterte, like over 80 per cent of the Philippines, was born and raised Catholic but does not consider himself practising and is not afraid to be seen as areligious.
Duterte's political brand is rooted in 'machismo', a form of heightened masculinity with roots in Spanish colonialism. Since his days as mayor of Davao City, Duterte has been brusque, brash and offensive. And his popularity has only grown. It's this swaggering attitude which had made him president and seemingly untouchable.
Only one body is within reach of bringing the president to heel. The powerful Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has been critical of the administration's bloody war on drugs, drawing the ire of Duterte. The uneducated proselytising is something different though — it has fundamentally undermined the function and purpose of the church. He was forced to meet with the CBCP.
Duterte and CBCP leadership met at the presidential palace on Monday to hash out a 'ceasefire' in which the president would stop commenting on the church and God. He has made this promise before. In June last year Duterte swore he would no longer bring up his unorthodox views on Catholicism, but returned to peppering speeches with his colourful ideas almost immediately.
During the meeting, bishops were forced to defend clergy, saying