Gordon turns tables on Duterte, shows President’s ‘admission’ to corruption

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Richard Gordon on Thursday turned the tables on President Rordigo Duterte as the lawmaker cited the chief executive’s “admission” to alleged corruption in 2017.

“Kagabi po, tumira na naman…Di ko na po sasagutin yan sapagkat yun ay patutsada lang po ng Pangulo yan, at hindi dapat sinasabi ng Pangulo yon,” Gordon said as he resumed the Senate blue ribbon committee probe into the government’s pandemic purchases last year.

(Last night, he lambasted me again… I will not bother to answer that because that is just part of a barrage that the President should have not said.)

“Ang isasagot ko para alam ng madla, napaka simple lang po, ito po ang sinabi ng Presidente doon sa [Philippine Chinese Charitable Association] on June 28, 2017: ‘I hate corruption. Hindi ako nagmamalinis. Marami rin akong nanakaw pero naubos na,’” the senator added.

(What I will tell the public, so that people would know, is as simple as this — the President said this on June 28, 2017 at the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association: “I hate corruption. I am not making myself clean here. I have also stolen a lot but they are all gone now.”)

Gordon said this was an “admission against self-interest.”

Senator Richard Gordon presents a slide with a quote from President Rodrigo Duterte’s speech before the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association in June 2017. Senate screengrab

“Yun lang ho ang sagot ko, Mr. President. Kayo na umamin na kayo ay nagnakaw sa gobyerno. Di po kami ang nagsabi niyan. Kayo ang nagsabi niyan,” he said.

(That is my only answer, Mr. President. You yourself admitted of stealing from the government. We didn’t say that. You were the one who said it.)

“Wala po akong nagsasabing nagnakaw kayo [I am not saying that you stole something],” Gordon added.

In a public address aired earlier Wednesday, Duterte again targeted Gordon and Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon as objects of his tirade, saying he would not be the country’s president if he is “corrupt like them.”

Drilon, for his part, refuted Duterte’s corruption claims against him.

“I am not corrupt…My record is clear and my conscience is clean,” Drilon said in an earlier statement.

“In my 32 years in public service — nine years in the executive and 23 years in the legislative — I have never been tried for corruption in the Ombudsman or Sandiganbayan,” he added.

JPV