Senator Leila de Lima. File photo
MANILA, Philippines — The public, especially young people and women, should resist President Rodrigo Duterte’s intensified attacks against the Catholic faith and public remarks that “reek of sexism and misogyny,” opposition Senator Leila de Lima said Tuesday.
“The trash that comes out from the foul mouth of this President – the ‘confession’ about the sexual assault of a kasambahay (housemaid) and the intensified attacks against the Catholic faith – is growing even more toxic and extremely sickening,” she said in a dispatch from Camp Crame.
“As to us who count ourselves as part of the pro-democracy forces, the urgent and compelling challenge to us is to get our act together and not be weakened and disabled by unnecessary frictions and divisiveness, which only benefit and empower the real and greater enemy,” she added.
In a speech in Kidapawan City, Cotabato last Dec. 30, 2018, 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
The fierce Duterte critic also called out individuals who continue to tolerate Duterte’s tirades, including the “greedy and abusive politicians and some members of the San Beda College Alumni Association who glorified infamy by recognizing Duterte as the ‘Bedan of the Decade.'”
“Shame on you, Bedans, those of you who, by your self-serving and hypocritical act of bestowing accolades to this first Bedan President as ‘Bedan of the Decade,’ have, in fact, glorified infamy, bringing dishonor to our Alma Mater,” she added.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo defended the Chief Executive, saying his confession was just “laughable anecdote” the President intentionally made up to “dramatize the sexual abuse” he suffered from a priest when he was still a minor.
READ: Palace says Duterte’s confession of touching maid a ‘spliced story’
/jpv