Philippine president slammed for calling God ‘stupid’

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine president, notorious for having cursed the pope and world leaders like former U.S. President Barack Obama, has sparked new outrage by calling God “stupid” in Asia’s largest Catholic country.

Opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV shot back Monday by describing President Rodrigo Duterte as “one evil man” and his remarks as “very much consistent with the deceitfulness, heartlessness, and ruthlessness of his policies,”.

Even some of Duterte’s political allies were critical.

A Catholic Bishop, Arturo Bastes, called the president a “madman” and urged Filipinos to pray for an end to Duterte’s “blasphemous utterances and dictatorial tendencies”.

“Duterte’s tirade against God and the Bible reveals again that he is a psychological freak, a psychopath, an abnormal mind who should not have been elected as president of our civilised and Christian nation,” Bastes said.

Another bishop, Ruperto Santos, said the president had crossed a line.

Duterte questioned in a televised speech Friday the Biblical story of man’s creation and asked why God created Adam and Eve only to allow them to succumb to temptation that destroyed their purity.

“Who is this stupid God? This son of a b**** is then really stupid,” said the 73-year-old leader, known for his rambling public statements.

“How can you rationalise a God? Do you believe?”

Duterte lamented that Adam and Eve’s sin in Christian theology resulted in all the faithful falling from divine grace.

“You were not involved but now you’re stained with an original sins ... What kind of a religion is that? That’s what I can’t accept, very stupid proposition,” he said.

Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief, said he has often backed Duterte’s policies, but after the president’s utterances against God “to whom I pray every single day and with whom I’ve found solace and comfort in all my difficult times, I don’t even have to think of my choice".

“May my God forgive him and make him atone for all his sins,” Lacson said.

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