PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will not apologize for having made up a story about touching a housemaid's private parts when he was still a teenager, Malacañang said on Thursday, January 3.
Speaking to Palace reporters, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo maintained that Duterte's supposed confession about committing sexual abuse was a just a "concocted story."
Panelo insisted that Duterte's latest claim was the President's way of criticizing the "hypocrisy" of some members of the clergy, specifically the priest who sexually abused the latter when he was still a minor.
Asked if Duterte would apologize for revealing in a televised speech the alleged lewd act he did to a sleeping housemaid when he was still young, the Palace official said: "Definitely hindi (not)."
"Precisely, sinadya niya nga 'yun kaya nga sinabi niya (he deliberately did it that's why he said), 'That was intentionally made.' It was a concocted story to dramatize the hypocrisy of a particular man in cloak," Panelo added.
In a speech in Kidapawan City, Cotabato on December 28, 2018, Duterte bared that he once confessed to a priest that he went to a housemaid's room to touch her in private part while sleeping.
The President said he went to the bathroom after the incident but returned to the room to "try to insert" his finger into the maid's private part, prompting the priest to ask him to say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys as penance for his lewd acts.
"I went to the room of the maid. I lifted the blanket. I tried to touch what was inside the panty. I was touching it. She woke up so I left the room," Duterte said, recounting his confession to the priest when he was young.
"I tried to insert my finger. Father. There was hair. It was wet. She was closing her eyes. Fast asleep," he added.
Duterte came under fire for his latest confession, but Panelo defended the President, who repeatedlty claimed that the President was molested by a Catholic priest.
Panelo said Duterte was merely using any method that will "dramatize, call attention, and bring the messages he wants to impart to those concerned."
He also stressed that Duterte did not mean to "degrade" women, expressing confidence that the Chief Executive's remarks would not encourage violence against women.
"I do not think so because precisely, it was dramatized in such a way that audience will laugh... Unang-una, hindi naman mahalay 'yung kwento niya. Nagtatawanan nga eh (First and foremost, his narration is not obscene. The audience even laughed at it)," Panelo said.
"Alam mo, ang nagiging problema lang yata kasi, 'yung masyadong mga ultra-conservative at 'yung mga taong hinahanapan talaga ng mali. 'Yun ang gagawin nilang reaksyon. But by and large, hindi naman eh. They know exactly the message of the President," he added.
(You know, the problem is those who are too conservative or those who want to find fault with the President, that's their reaction. But by and large, it's not the case. They know exactly the message of the President.) (SunStar Philippines)