A foul-mouthed president showers acid rain

We have heard of a political banter of Churchillian fierceness. Of Stanley Baldwin, a former British prime minister, Winston Churchill had said once that he was "an epileptic corpse."

Douglas MacArthur, the  fabled American General on the  crucial eastern front during the Second World War was on record saying, "Eisenhower will make a fine president. He was the best clerk who ever served under me."

Those could be hard-hitting, painfully heart-breaking for the person at the receiving end, more so if it were one-sided. Most probably they were score-settling diatribes which in the civil society may pass for idiosyncratic license for successful, great personages.

We are aware of an anecdote indicative of hostility between two major players in international affairs. Cold War time Chinese Prime Minister Chou-en Lai on an occasion did not take the extended hand of the then US secretary of state John Foster Dulles to shake it in the reflexive standard form of greeting. Whether Chou did it deliberately or not, it went down as an embarrassing gaffe, understandably on both sides.

Then there were times when words like 'lackeys and lapdogs' poured lead into the ears of the so-called non-imperialist world.

Also, we have seen the crude display of megalomaniac reprisal by Idi Amin against his former British rulers. He would have himself carried on the shoulders of white men seated on a mounted perch to venues of international conferences.

Libyan leader Col. Gaddafi who fancied pitching tents wherever he went to had   foreign visitors kick their heels for hours before being granted his audience. Many who came for favour would privately fret and fume asking 'who does he think he has become'!

But all of these are surpassed by the depravity and vulgarity in the use of language by the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. In unheard-off innuendo, he called Barack Obama a "son of a w****", the last word being unprintable in civilised discourse. On the eve of his scheduled meeting with the US president in Laos on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific  Summit, he was supposed to face unpleasant questions in the wake of his having killed off 3,000 drug criminals without due process of law. Duterte had warned President Obama against lecturing him on human rights violations.

Even assuming that the Philippine president was riled by journalists who were merely anticipating what he might face and what his response could be when he met Obama, why should he have reacted so vulgarly?

He has a history of foul-mouthing; not only did he brand the US ambassador to Manila as a "gay son of a w****", he even sought to taint the reputation of Pope Francis's mother in similar fashion.

That he has won the election conclusively and claims he has  90 percent Filipino support for his  actions should not go to his head; instead, he should gain strength  from these  to be confidently upholding rule of law .

The net result of his outbursts has been a disrespect shown to an outgoing president and consequently, souring an otherwise solidly based US-Philippine relations. There is even a striking similarity between the preamble to the US Constitution and that to the Philippine Constitution. Manila has won a law of the sea case with her marine boundaries, which of course China is not agreeable to.

Does Rodrigo Duterete put across a negative signal to a cohesive littoral states' alliance for protection and exploitation of vast marine resources in the region?

Apparently, he makes no bones about retaining freedom of action. For, he says, "I am no American puppet. I am the president of a sovereign country and I am not answerable to anyone except the Filipino people."

All that is fine and dandy, but why lambast in a language there is no need for except to disrupt decent communication which is the basis of civilised conduct of human affairs? 

The writer is a contributor of The Daily Star.