A new book, “Jokes Only: A Book on Duterteisms”, self-published by a former journalist and journalism professor has just come off the press.
The book about the jokes of President Rodrigo Duterte is written by Dr. Crispin C. Maslog, a former journalist with Agence France-Presse and journalism professor of Silliman University in Dumaguete City and the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
The book contains 64 jokes that Duterte told during his campaign for the presidency in 2016 and in the next five years, during his press conferences and public engagements, Maslog said Wednesday, March 30.
“Remember those days? It was governance by shock and awe. He spewed the language of the streets, as he ordered his police to go after drug addicts and slay them in their homes and neighborhoods, due process is damned,” Maslog said.
“He was swearing and undermining the morals of our youth, insulting everybody — journalists, the Pope and church leaders, President Obama and world leaders, human rights activists, everyone within sight who disagreed with him or stood in his way,” Maslog added.
But recently notice how President Duterte has looked tired in public, Maslog said.
“After five years of insulting everybody including God and the Pope, he seems to have mellowed down. And he has stopped joking, perhaps because people no longer laugh at his so-called jokes. Or perhaps now he wants people to forget the sins of his administration, because it is election time and his daughter is running for Vice President?” Maslog said.
Maslog said a random online survey he did a month ago said that 85 percent of Filipino Millennials think the Duterte jokes had a “very bad impact” on our youth.
“President Duterte should be made to account for the damage he has inflicted on our nation’s morals. We should reject the people he implicitly or explicitly endorses in the coming elections. We should not allow him to just slip into the night without doing penance for his sins,” Maslog said.
Maslog said his book will be available at New Day Publishers on E. Rodriguez Avenue and Solidaridad Bookstore on Padre Faura, Manila, or he can be reached at cmaslog@hotmail.com.*