DAVAO CITY , Philippines – Controversial lawyer Eli Pamatong filed yesterday here at the city prosecutors’ office a joint libel and slight coercion case against Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and a publisher/editor of a local paper for allegedly calling him “crazy” and “foolish” for proposing the creation of a “Federal Republic of Mindanesia” that would separate Mindanao from the rest of the country.
Pamatong, who earned the monicker “Spike Boy” for scattering spikes along major thoroughfares that punctured the tires of motorists, earlier also proposed the parallel creation of an Autonomous Region for Christian Mindanao which he claimed would serve as some kind of a defense mechanism against the interest given to Muslims in the south.
But Duterte strongly rejected Pamatong’s proposal and even calling the idea crazy and foolish in the sense that the move is based on religion. In his TV program “Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa,” aired two Sundays ago, Duterte said no state should be created just because of religion, explaining that doing so will just create chaos and encourage segregation.
Duterte said he is for a republic of Mindanao but this should be for Christians, Muslims and ethnic tribes alike and not just for Christians.
However, Pamatong took Duterte’s pronouncements as an attack against his person.
Pamatong told The STAR that he took Duterte’s “crazy and foolish” statement as more against him as a person and not just against his proposal of a separate Federal Republic of Mindanesia.
He said his libel complaint against Duterte was based on the vice mayor’s pronouncements on his TV show and at the same time what came out in the newspapers and other media outlets about the Mindanesia issue.
Pamatong also included in his complaint against Duterte, Roger Balanza, the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Durian Post, a weekly newspaper based here in Davao City.