Presumptive president-elect Rodrigo Duterte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte slammed the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for its resolution claiming that Duterte violated the Magna Carta for Women when he uttered his infamous rape remark.
Duterte said that the government body was “too naive and too simplistic,” maintaining that he could not be called out for his remark because he was just exercising his constitutional right to free speech.
“Huwag nilang pilitin. Mapapahiya lang sila. (They shouldn’t push it. They’ll just be humiliated.) They are too naive and too simplistic. I was narrating an event. You cannot prevent me from talking. I am exercising my right to free speech,” Duterte said.
“Round one pa lang sila… [CHR is] wasting the money of the Filipino people. Sabihin mo (Tell them), ‘Shut up!’” he added.
READ: Digong rape joke violated women’s rights–CHR
The incoming President drew flak with his remark that sounded like a rape joke pertaining to the late Australian missionary Jacqueline Hamill, who was allegedly raped in a Davao prison in 1989
“I was narrating an event that really happened. Why will you stop me? Hindi naman out of the blue na may minura akong babae (I wasn’t cursing at a woman out of the blue),” he explained.
Duterte said that he made the remark to shut down detractors supposedly looking for the video about the “joke” he made, in order to malign him.
“Alam ko na gagamitin nila yan. So that I will no longer have to explain everything so inunahan ko na. Itong pu******* CHR naman, kumagat rin. Sipain ko sila” (I know that they will use it against me. So that I will no longer have to explain everything, I preempted them. But this son of a b**** CHR bit the bait. I want to kick them.)
He called CHR chairman Chito Gascon an “idiot.”
“That idiot is nitpicking. I told already in public how it happened. Then you keep on issuing a statement. Here I am, I’m about to enter the presidency. What do you want?” Duterte said, when asked if he would demand Gascon’s resignation.
In its resolution, the CHR said that the “words and actions” of the 71-year-old Duterte “(were) discriminatory of women that is enjoined by the Magna Carta of Women.”
It also urged the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to take appropriate measures.
The CHR “has the sacred constitutional duty to protect human rights and to call out persons when these rights are violated, no matter what their position in society may be,” Gascon said. CDG/rga
READ: Duterte speaks like a pimp, women’s rights group say