Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Butch Abad defended on Wednesday, December 16 the verbal retorts of Mar Roxas against Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, saying the Liberal Party (LP) presidential bet risked looking like a wimp if he kept his mouth shut.
“Filipinos love ‘sabong’. If Roxas does not respond to Duterte’s jabs, he might be seen as flimsy,” Abad, former LP president and campaign strategist of “Mr. Palengke” told ANC Headstart.
The trusted Aquino Cabinet member defined sabong or political cockfight as “a clash of personalities”, which Filipinos apparently can’t get enough of during election season.
“Right now, campaigns are driven by personalities, not by issues. Filipinos have a penchant to love sabong,” Abad said.
And speaking of cocks, the scathing exchange between LP bet Roxas and his PDP-Laban counterpart Duterte was all about that–testosterone.
Duterte is already known to be full of that hormone as he “started” the verbal tiff between him and the ex-interior secretary over the weekend when he threatened to slap the latter in the face for falsely claiming he’s a Wharton School of Business graduate.
Roxas then showed that he had the cojones by issuing his own threat to slap Duterte, which he later elevated to a good old fist fight once he proves that his Wharton claim is true.
“Duterte’s accusations against Roxas has no basis. Issue might boomerang on Duterte because it has been proven that Roxas is a Wharton alumnus,” Abad said.
Still, this hasn’t stopped some observers from criticizing both politikos for their infantile tit-for-tat amid the serious problems facing the country.
(Jeffrey N. Hardel)
