"Who is this stupid God?" - President Duterte asks

BBC reports that he asked this question during a televised speech in Davao, in front of government officials on Friday, June 22, 2018.

While speaking, he expressed disbelief in the popular creation story and teaching that humans have already sinned at birth.

In Duterte's words, "Who is this stupid God? He's really stupid. You created something perfect, and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work."

He also slammed the story of Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden of Eden after they ate the "forbidden fruit".

Concerning the concept of original sin, which says that all humans are born sinners, the president said, "You weren't born yet, but now you have original sin. What kind of religion is that? I can't accept it."

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Reactions to President's outrageous statements

Duterte's words have angered a lot of citizens of Philippine, which is Asia's biggest Catholic nation, where Catholics are the majority on and other Christian denominations are the minority.

A local Catholic bishop named Arturo Bastes reacted by calling the president a "madman" and asked people to pray for his "blasphemous utterances and dictatorial tendencies" to end.

AP reports that the bishop also said that the president's "tirade against God and the Bible reveals again that he is a psychological freak, a psychopath, an abnormal mind who should not have been elected as president of our civilized and Christian nation."

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines issued a statement on Monday, June 25, 2018, criticising Duterte for "attacking Christian beliefs." He has also been criticised online.

Reacting to the backlash, presidential spokesman Harry Roque offered an explanation on behalf of the president to GMA News.

He said, "I think the declaration of the president stemmed from his bad experience when still young. He was allegedly abused by a priest. This is an issue that the Church should face and perhaps it just happened that the president is one of the victims."

He added: "The Church cannot forget this. It should admit and ask forgiveness so that all the victims, including President Duterte, can also move on with their lives."

Salvador Panelo, the chief presidential legal counsel, has released a statement where he also offered an explanation for the president.

"He didn't call God stupid. What he said was the theory of creation as expounded by the writers of the Bible is a stupid proposition," he said.

Prior to this, the president has insulted the pope, rivals, the European Union, the United Nations, and recently sparked a controversy by making a woman kiss him in a public event.