Why Digong won’t see a shrink

United Nations Human Rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Hussein last Friday suggested that President Duterte “submit himself to some sort of psychiatric examination” or “see a shrink,” as the Inquirer put it.

Jose Ma. Sison, Communist Party leader on exile, advised Duterte last July 26 to get medical help. Sison said the president has a “sick mind.” In October 2016, TV-movie entertainer Agot Isidro called him a “psycho” and told him to “get checked up.”

Even as Palace communicators promptly denounced the U.N. official for insulting Duterte, a number of stories about “shrinks” and their patients went the rounds of places where people meet. The kind of stories that discourage people, including presidents, from getting psychiatric counsel:

-- Receptionist on intercom to her boss in the office: “A congressman is here, doctor. He says he’s invisible and cannot be seen.” The psychiatrist’s reply: “If he can’t be seen, how can I see him?”

-- Two doctors, both psychiatrists, are having an affair. They meet in the morning at the hospital ward. He asks her, “How I am feeling today?” That night they have sex. She says to him, “That was good for you. How was it for me?”

But why wouldn’t one see a psychiatrist? What do some patients say?

-- “I don’t want to see a shrink. I hear voices in my head and the doctor might recognize them.”

-- “If I don’t agree with the psychiatrist, I must get a second and third opinion. They’ll call me mad. I’ll call them mad. I’ll be outvoted.”

-- “I told the doctor on my first and only visit, ‘I believe I am a goat.’ Since when, he asked. I said, ‘since I was a kid.’ He laughed. I was so angry I couldn’t bleat.”

■ ‘S.O.B.’ from teacher, Duterte

A mother was horrified when she heard her seven-year-old son doing his arithmetic lesson. “Two plus two the son-of-a-b **** is four, four plus four the son-of-a-b **** is eight…”

She called up the teacher and told him what she heard. The teacher laughed, making the mother more angry. “Son-of-a-b **** ” from the mouth of a first grader was no laughing matter.

The teacher explained, “What I said was two plus two the sum of which is four... the sum of which.”

The boy misheard or the teacher didn’t pronounce the phrase clearly.

But President Duterte said the S word plainly enough. Reporters quoted him correctly when he said, “Maski ang napili ay son-of-a-b **** na presidente, eh yon lang pala wala tayong magawa.” In effect, voters can’t complain and nothing can be done about it “since you elected an s.o.b. for a president.”

■ Same sex every time

When the House started debate on HB #6595 that allows same-sex unions between lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans-genders, a congressman was overheard by another congressman:

“I don’t understand the fuss over the samesex marriage bill. I know couples who have the same sex, every week or every month, for 20 years now.”

Comedian Bill Maher quipped on his TV show, “For the record, all marriages are same-sex. You get married and you get the same sex every night.”

The bill, of course, refers to something else. It allows civil union between a man and a woman or a couple of the same sex. It’s not called marriage but confers the same rights on the partners as marriage does. In Portugal, a Catholic country, lawmakers in allowing samesex marriage called it what it is, a marriage, not anything else.