Duterte to walk out of debate if he won’t have enough time to talk

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday said he might walk out of the presidential debates in Cagayan de Oro City on Feb. 21 if he would not be given enough time to say his piece.

“I am a slow talker. What I conceive in my head, the gray matter between my ears, (it) takes (me) a long time to express it orally,” Duterte said in an ambush interview at University of the Philippines Diliman.

Asked if he would walk out of the debate if he would not be given enough time, he said, “Baka, baka.”

“Bakit ikaw ang magkontrol? You put me under stress. I cannot talk. I cannot think. I might as well go home,” he said.

The presidential debates will be held in Cagayan de Oro as part of a series organized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Depending on the available time, there will be three or four rounds of questions. In each round, candidates will be paired off.

For each pair, the first candidate will have 90 seconds to answer the question, the paired candidate 60 seconds to rebut, and the first candidate again 30 seconds to counter the rebuttal.

Duterte said he was not feeling nervous about the debates.

“Why should I feel nervous? I should be honest enough. I have no obligation to lie,” he said. RC

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