Duterte's controversial remarks, actions
President Rodrigo Duterte, 74, is not used to speaking in Filipino and did not mean that he ordered an ambush on Vicente Loot, a former police general and former mayor of Daanbantayan in Cebu, as his words on Tuesday night suggested, the Palace says.
"It is silly and absurd to conclude that PRRD (Duterte's initials) is behind the ambush just because he misspeaks the Pilipino language which is not his native tongue or first language," presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo says.
"The Filipino nation by this time is already familiar and used to the language of the President who invariably uses a mixture of English, Bisaya (Cebuano dialect) and Pilipino in communicating with the nation," Panelo also said.
Duterte uses Filipino in most of his speeches.
Sen. Richard Gordon says he takes no offense at President Duterte's comments in response to his criticism of the chief executive's preference for appointing former military officers to government posts.
"As I have said, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and we cannot be onion skinned about such things. I will continue to focus on working hard to serve the country and the people," Gordon, whose stomach Duterte had taken aim at, says.
I am happy that President is concerned about my waistline, but he need not worry about that. My wife has seen to it that I have reduced it significantly of late. But I appreciate that he is concerned about by health as I am about his.
— Richard J. Gordon (@DickGordonDG) August 1, 2019
RELATED: Duterte said Gordon ran for vice president. He didn't.
Duterte also said Gordon is "a fart away from disaster" and walks like a penguin.
The president also mentioned that Gordon's nickname is also a slang term for penis although Duterte incorrectly used the Filipino word for scrotum.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, in a radio interview, says President Rodrigo Duterte was not serious about being behind extrajudicial killings as he remarked on Thursday night.
Roque says the president wanted to emphasize that he is not involved in graft and corruption and says in Filipino: "I don't think that's in a literal context."
The Human Rights Watch says President Duterte's "go to hell" tirade against a UN rapporteur is "the same tired, old rhetoric" designed to frustrate attempts by the international community to look into the thousands of drug war killings allegedly perpetrated by the police and state agents.
"President Duterte has been trying to evade accountability for these killings by subjecting UN experts and investigators as well as human rights defenders to relentless attacks. The UN must not be deterred and should now initiate an investigation into Duterte's continuing 'drug war.'"
Duterte on Sunday lashed at UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Diego García-Sayán who criticized the high court ruling that ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. He told Sayán to "go to hell" for allegedly meddling with Philippine affairs.
Women’s group Gabriela calls President Rodrigo Duterte’s act of kissing a Filipina migrant worker in South Korea a “disgusting theatrics of a misogynist president.”
“It is also his own perverted way of getting back at his women critics, his way of proving he can dominate women at any time, and any place he chooses. It is his way of publicly exhibiting his contempt for women,” Gabriela says.
During a meeting with the Filipino community in Seoul, South Korea on Sunday, Duterte kissed a Filipina on the lips and hugged her afterwards.
The president, controversial for his remarks and actions against women, asked the audience to not take the kiss seriously, calling it “just a gimmick” to make people happy.
Duterte, in the past, has been called sexist and misogynist for his comments on women.
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