Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is no stranger to controversy. He is well known both at home and abroad as President with an unfiltered personality and outrageous statements matched only by American President Donald Trump.
Duterte has created a stir yet again, this time for his attack on religion. During a televised speech in Davao, the President sparked outrage for calling God "stupid". The news was first reported by the BBC.
Asking "Who is this stupid God?", Duterte criticised the Biblical story of creation and Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden of Eden after they ate the "forbidden fruit". Duterte also slammed the concept of original sin, whereby all humans are tainted by Adam and Eve's wrongdoing, saying: "You weren't born yet, but now you have original sin... What kind of religion is that? I can't accept it."
"You created something perfect and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work," he said.
In response, local Catholic bishop Arturo Bastes called the President a "madman" and urged people to pray for his "blasphemous utterances and dictatorial tendencies" to end. He wasn't the only one, citizens from all over the country and the world immediately criticised the President, with the Church also condemning his remarks. In response, the office of the President said he was merely expressing his personal beliefs, and did not offer an apology.
Duterte has in the past also criticised the Pope in crude language and has given statements widely deemed as highly offensive, cruel or misogynist.
Duterte is a known and open critic of the Catholic Church in a country where more than 90 percent of people are Christian and the vast majority of those are Catholics.
In the past, Duterte has been known for his controversial remarks asking the UN to brand four priests as terrorists, asking Beijing to make the Philipines a province of China and wanting his troops to shoot female rebels in the genitals.
[With inputs from IANS]
