ON MAY 31, a day after snubbing his proclamation as winner of the May 9 presidential election, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte rambled on for two hours during a nationally televised news conference in Davao City.
Finding an opportunity, GMA 7 reporter Mariz Umali asked Duterte a question about his Cabinet appointees. But instead of answering her, Duterte said something about her trying to get his attention, wolf-whistled at her and sang to her.
Umali tried to press her question, but Duterte just smiled and some other reporters laughed.
Umali’s journalist husband, Raffy Tima, took to Facebook to criticize Duterte’s behavior.
“Catcalling my wife is wrong in so many levels,” Tima wrote. “Some jokes are funny and should be laughed at but disrespecting women is definitely not one of them.”
On June 2, Duterte called another news conference and defended himself against increasing criticism in the newspapers and on social media.
“You can’t stop me,” he told the reporters. “That’s my freedom of expression.”
“I was exasperated by the question. Whistling is not a sexual thing,” he said, and wolf-whistled again.
Duterte said he was just “expressing something,” but the media blew the whole thing out of proportions. Inquirer Research Source: Inquirer Archives