Even God has not escaped the diatribes of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte who has cursed the pope for causing traffic in Manila during his trip to the country in 2015.
Duterte questioned the existence of God while defending his proposed revival of the death penalty in the predominantly Catholic country.
“So, where is … God when a one-year old baby … is taken from the mother’s arms brought under a jeep and raped and killed. So where is God?” said the president.
Duterte was referring to a murder in August in Manila that shocked the nation.
He also cited atrocities against women and children in Syria and the killings committed by the so-called Islamic State in other parts of the world.
“So where is God? My God, where are you? I believe in God but that is my perpetual question to him. Where were you when we needed you?” said Duterte.
The president lamented that Filipinos no longer observe the law because they are not afraid. He said the death penalty, even before it was abolished, was never imposed because Catholics opposed it by raising the issue of morality.
“I can simply say the death penalty was not effective because it was not imposed,” said Duterte.
“Every president along the way would just say, one, because of the Catholic Church. Second, the bleeding hearts, because only God can kill. The problem is, I ask you, what if there’s no God?” he said.
Duterte said it is not enough to say God will come to judge the living and the dead in the midst of “heartaches, sorrow, and agony … inflicted in this world.”
“Only God has power over life. God gives life and God takes life. No one should play God,” said Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga.
The prelate, who heads the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, said life is sacred and should be “promoted, respected, and protected.”
Duterte, however, maintained that reviving capital punishment would instill fear among criminals.
The Philippines placed a moratorium on capital punishment in 2001 and five years later downgraded the sentences of 1,230 death-row inmates to life imprisonment in what Amnesty International described as the “largest ever commutation of death sentences.”
Joe Torres, Manila
Philippines
http://www.ucanews.com/news/philippine-president-questions-gods-existence/77224
