MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte's latest sex jokes with other government execs at a public briefing that was supposed to be about Typhoon Ulysses should not be read into, his spokesperson said Monday.
Speaking at a press briefing on Monday noon, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque defended the president's latest misogynistic tirade was simply an attempt to lighten the mood amid the country's dire situation in the aftermath of the storm.
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"Let's not read anything beyond the fact that the president more or less wants to lighten the mood," he said in mixed Filipino and English.
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"The entire day all he saw was destruction," he added.
This comes after Duterte at a situation briefing with disaster officials on Sunday saw the chief executive joking about the Bicol region having too many women.
Referring to one local official, Duterte quipped in Filipino: "He spent all his time [sleeping around with women], and he got old. Having too many women, that makes you old."
Later, the president joked that one man who died after contracting the coronavirus "didn't have enough women."
Other officials present at the meeting could be heard laughing audibly, with one even joking that the region was "undersexed."
READ: Fisherfolk group on Roque's singing after 'Ulysses': 'No time to unwind'
While Duterte and his spokesperson try to carve out "light" moments and "unload" in the aftermath of Ulysses, many Filipinos have lost homes and relatives.
Similarly, crude and irreverent remarks have become a staple over the past four years of Duterte's administration and are nothing new, and this is not his first time dropping them after a tragic event.
At a commemoration event on the anniversary of Typhoon Yolanda, Duterte found it in himself to joke about Vice President Leni Robredo's skirt being too short.
“Ma'am Leni wore a dress that was shorter than usual. The protocol officers probably noticed I was always behind her. I told [Finance Secretary] Sonny Dominguez, ‘You're too far, come closer. Check out her knees," he was quoted as saying in Filipino.
— Franco Luna
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