LAST week's column ("My Take on Rodrigo Duterte," TMT, Nov. 1, 2024) was supposed to include a couple of paragraphs on the similarities between Rodrigo Duterte and the Maranao/Magindanao folktale character Pilandok — a mouse-deer (Tragulus nigricans) — summarized by Lilia Quindoza Santiago as "a clever ordinary man of scanty material means but who plays tricks to get the better of others ... [and] chooses to challenge creatures who are greedy and filthy rich."
Historian Zeus Salazar made the connection between Duterte and Pilandok during the former president's incumbency. I wanted to include the said connection in last week's column but had to prune it because of editorial policy on word-count limitations. Instead, I posted in my social media what I originally wrote where it was favorably received by the readers:
