MANILA, Philippines – Days away from formally stepping down as the Philippines’ top diplomat, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano gave some advice to career diplomats on how to interpret President Rodrigo Duterte’s remarks.

Citing a style of debate, Cayetano said Duterte talks in an absurd manner to supposedly show his seriousness in resolving issues.

“As a young lawyer who loves to debate even [at] our dinner table, I learned the different styles of debate – argumentum ad absurdum – ‘you argue to be absurd’ na madalas gawin ng ating Pangulo (that the President usually does),” Cayetano said on Monday, October 15.

“‘Di ba ‘yung tinotodo niya na ‘pag may sinabi na gagawin niya na absurd, just to show na seryoso siya (He only cites extremes to the point that it is absurd already, just to show that he is serious).”

But argumentum ad absurdum is a method showing that if a belief leads to an obvious absurdity, then it is false.

Cayetano resigned from his post to run for congressman in the 2019 midterm elections.

To send his message across, Cayetano devoted the next 5 minutes of his speech pretending to be the President giving a speech, telling the career diplomats “the reverse of everything” Duterte has said.

“Mga kababayan, hindi ko priority ang OFWs (overseas Filipino workers). Kung may kaso sila, pabayaan mo sila. Kung delikado na sila, ano’ng pakialam natin kung ano’ng alert. Kung mababa sweldo nila, eh wala tayong magagawa, nakikiusap lang kayo sa bansang doon. ‘Pagka may nangyari sa kanila, ‘wag nating labanan, ni ‘wag natin pauwiin. Kung api tayo at tratuhin tayo na parang slaves, okay lang ‘yun, nasanay na tayo eh.”

(To my countrymen, the OFWs are not my priority. If they face cases, just let them be. If they’re in a dangerous situation, we don’t care whatever alert level is raised in their area. If their salaries are low, we can’t do anything about that, because they’re only asking that the country take them in. If something happens to them, let’s not fight for them or bring them home. If they oppress Filipinos and treat us like slaves, that’s fine because we’re used to that.)

Cayetano then pushed his point further, saying, “But he (Duterte) is being criticized for saying the opposite.”

Interpreting Duterte

With Duterte known for conflicting statements, Cayetano told career diplomats that the key to interpreting the President’s remarks depends on the context of his “language.”

“When you say war on drugs, it may be in English but it’s not the same English as UK English or US English or Singlish (Singapore English). What we meant by that is an honest to goodness, dedicated, committed campaign against drugs,” Cayetano said.

“It doesn’t mean that we will call out the military and we will fight and there will be people who will be caught in between and everything,” he added. (READ: Duterte Dictionary: How Harry Roque interprets what the President says)

Cayetano claimed that critics may only disagree with Duterte’s manner of speaking, and not necessarily with what his remarks mean.

“We are up in arms [over] the way the President says certain things without sometimes thinking. We may not agree [with] the language or the manner he says it, but what he is saying is right,” Cayetano said.

He added that 70% to 80% of Filipinos still support Duterte, because the “right things” the President has done are “being felt.” 

“It doesn’t mean that they agree with everything he’s doing, but they agree with the direction,” Cayetano said.

In a Pulse Asia survey, public approval for Duterte’s performance fell by 13 percentage points to 75% in September from 88% in June.

Days after the survey was released, Duterte appeared to admit to extrajudicial killings as the only “sin” that he is guilty of. Officials said the President “was not serious” when he said that.

Cayetano will be replaced by Teodoro Locsin Jr starting Wednesday, October 17. In 2016, Locsin got into a word war with netizens over his tweets in defense of Duterte’s comments drawing parallels between his bloody anti-drug campaign and Adolf Hitler’s annihilation of 3 million Jews. – Rappler.com