Duterte’s ‘joke’ on Australian’s rape gets attention of int’l media

The international media has picked up and published stories on presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s comment on the rape of an Australian missionary 27 years ago and the social media backlash that followed.

The online editions of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Singapore-based The Straits Times, and online media outfit Gawker came up with articles on the viral video showing how Duterte recalled the rape of the Australian as his audience laughed.

The PDP-Laban standard bearer who recently topped the presidential preference surveys was speaking about a female minister who was taken hostage, raped, and killed by prisoners in 1989.

"Nagalit ako kasi ni-rape? Oo. Isa rin 'yun. Pero napakaganda, dapat mayor muna ang nauna. Sayang," he said in the video taken during a sortie in Quezon City on April 12, Tuesday.

Duterte's apparent joke has been derided in the social media and has received widespread disapproval, including those from a colleague of the missionary, the Australian Embassy, and Malacañang.

ABC said that reports from the period identified the victim as 36-year-old Jacqueline Hamill.

Of the four sites, only Gawker ran a comment section for the article.

“Whenever I see something like this, I want to show whoever said it a current calendar thinking they’ll have to be genuinely surprised and say something like, ‘Oh shit, it’s 2016?! I’m so sorry, I thought it was the 1500s. My bad, dude. I’ll start fighting for equality now’,” commenter BleedingFromHerWherever said.

BBC and The Straits Times highlighted the reaction of Duterte’s rivals and the women’s advocates on his statement.

In the BBC report, Duterte was described by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) as the “death squad mayor” for his alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings in Davao City.

The Straits Times, on the other hand, wrote about how many Filipinos “embraced” Duterte for his “vulgarity-laced speeches, his boasts of sexual conquests, and his promised war on crime.”

“Even when he called Pope Francis a ‘son of a whore’, in a speech last November, his followers in the devoutly Catholic nation quickly forgave him,” the report read.

The Straits Times also quoted Duterte’s Filipina supporter on Twitter who said, “We won't apologise for he has done nothing wrong, it was a clear joke for God's sake.”

The international news sites pointed out that Duterte's lead in the upcoming May 9 elections.

Duterte has refused to apologize for the rape comment, but clarified that his "gutter language" was his way of expressing anger. —Trisha Macas/NB, GMA News