President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday afternoon was awarded as the Man of the Year 2016 by the Manila Times for overcoming the odds and changing the political landscape.
In his speech during the Manila Times’ 5th Business Forum in Davao, Duterte said he was honored to accept the award despite him admitting that he refused the offers of several organizations to give him awards.
“I made it a matter of personal and official policy not to accept awards all these years. I’m relating this to you, all the Davaoeños know I do not accept awards except this one,” Duterte said.
“I could respectfully decline it and I would always say, you do not give me an award or reward for the things that I have to do because I am paid to do that. But ngayon kasi (But now), maybe because it’s high time, at least before I go beyond, I should have one award,” he added.
Duterte said one of the reasons why he refused receiving the awards is because of his controversial remarks about the 1989 gang rape of Australian missionary worker Jaqueline Hamil which was reported by the media.
“It was uttered in anger, as an insult actually; I was relating it because somebody was here looking for the footage during the last election, and they were offering that clip there sa RPN, because somebody was piggy back while I was advancing to the side of prison. A journalist was also behind me, and so he got everything, what I said. But all in a day’s anger ‘yan. Para hindi ako maunahan, I related the story during the campaign sorties, because I knew that if they could get it at the last minute, I would have a hard time, you know, how to temper and how to explain to the public that this is what happened. I would have a hard time explaining,” he said.
Duterte then enumerated his inspirations and achievement in life as a prosecutor, and a mayor before he became the president.
“I was just a prosecutor for 9 years and I was appointed as OIC vice mayor in 1987 but the agreement was that after a stint, because they placed the name of my mother, Soledad Duterte, in the list of persons who are going to take their oath of office because Cory Aquino was coming,” Duterte said, adding that his mother backed out at the last minute because said she doesn’t want a life of politics.
He said he did not aspire to be a politician since all he wanted was to be a judge.
“My ultimate target was to be a Sandiganbayan judge, but I had this ruckus with the OIC Mayor and found myself running in 1988 as mayor. I have been the mayor of this city [Davao City] up to the moment I ran for [the] presidency for 23 years,” he said, adding that he witnessed how Davao City was at the crossroads of the events of the Philippines.
He added that he was also handling the Nationalist Alliance for Justice, Freedom and democracy – now known as Karapatan —when he was still the prosecutor before, and that the government did not know that he was traversing the ideological border.
The President said he leans on the socialist side but he was never a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines and that all he could offer was his “homegrown talent of persuading people” just to go in peace.
“And so when Davao was seriously affected with drugs and crime, I was just new but I had this warning to everybody and with no apology,” he said, reiterating that the people involved in illegal drug activities and other criminals to avoid heinous crimes.
“Do not destroy the youth of my city because I will kill you, and that was the rule of the game. How many died and for what reason, I really do not know,” he said.
Duterte reiterated that he would not repeat the mistakes of ex-Colombian President Cesar Gaviria in his brutal war on drugs.
“This ex-president of Colombia, he said, ‘Duterte is committing the same mistakes.’ We can never [make]the same mistake because I am not [as]stupid as you are,” the President said.
