Mayor Duterte Punches Sheriff in the Face, Becomes Twitter Trending Topic

Yesterday morning, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte repeatedly punched the face of a Davao Regional Trial Court sheriff after the latter failed to heed the Mayor's request for a two-hour delay in the demolition of a depressed community in her jurisdiction, which led to a rather bloody confrontation between the demolition team and some residents.



In an interview with ABS-CBN News, Mayor Sara Duterte shared,

"I was asking him for 2 hours because we were already preparing for the demolition yesterday. I sat down with the people in the area and I asked our city housing to sit down with the owner of the property. Everything was supposed to go smooth sailing but what happened was I asked him to wait for me and give me 2 hours because I am still in the relief operations [following the devastating flood that swept Davao the other day] and he said he will not comply and proceed with the demolition. So when I arrived, the riot was starting already and one police was hurt already. Medyo mainit na talaga yung ulo ko, mam. [...]

They say they are going to file contempt charges. That is not a problem for me."

Here's a video of what happened:



Following a live TV airing of the incident, Mayor Duterte quickly became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter with a great number of Pinoy Tweeps sharing their opinion on what she did --



A few related twits --





The reactions are obviously mixed. Some are praising her for what she did and some are slamming her, saying that punching someone is downright wrong and distasteful.

TP Thoughts:

If you've experienced being really really tired and angry at the same time for whatever reason even at just one point in your life, you'd probably understand what was going on in the mind of Mayor Duterte during that moment. I'd imagine that it's hard enough to be the Mayor of a city that's just recovering from a disastrous flood, and then you hear news about a bloody demolition, which happened simply because your request for a dialogue extension wasn't granted.

It's never right to hurt other people, TP Friends. No one - Mayor or not - has the right to punch another in the face. But I'm not sure I would have done better if I were in Mayor Duterte's shoes. Heck, I wouldn't want to be in her shoes -- more so, these days. Hence, I won't be the first one to throw a stone at her. Sometimes we experience things or things happen to us that cloud our ability to think on our toes or to take hold of our emotions;

I guess we all should just always keep it mind that Korean proverb --

"If you kick a stone in anger, you'll hurt your own foot."