Opposition solons blast Duterte’s confession about touching maid

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte’s story of allegedly touching a maid in her private part in her sleep was a “disgusting tirade against women and the nation,” opposition lawmakers criticized Sunday,

In a speech in Kidapawan City, Cotabato on Saturday, Duterte shared to the public how he confessed to a priest for touching a maid twice in her private part while she was asleep.

Duterte said the priest of the Catholic school he was in at the time allegedly touched him too.

READ: Another joke? Duterte shares story of ‘touching’ a maid in his youth Kabataan Rep. Sarah Elago said Duterte’s admission of committing sexual harassment when he was a minor was a “new low in his grossly disgusting tirades against women and the nation.” This, she said, was a new addition in the President’s countless verbal attacks on the people, ranging from the derogatory use of “bakla” and damning treatment against women, to telling the poor “mamatay kayo sa gutom,” to ordering soldiers and police to “kill civilians, bomb schools and hamlet the Lumad.” But Elago also warned that this could be a diversion from the acquittal of House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from her 2007 electoral sabotage case. ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, meanwhile, said the story was “really disgusting” and “uncalled for” as she branded Duterte a “truly sick man.” “Sa gitna ng kabi-kabilang nararanasan ng mamamayan na kalamidad bago magtapos ang taon ay nagagawa pang magkwento ng ganito ang pangulong ito, sa halip na  gamitin ang pagkakataon na makatulong sa mga mamamayan,” Castro said. “Di kailangan ng mga tao ang ganitong kwento. He is truly a sick man,” she added. /jpv