President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he used marijuana to cope with the “killing” schedule at last month’s summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore, then later said he was just joking—and that anyone who believed him was stupid.
In a speech during the awarding ceremony to recognize several government agencies, officials and employees for their work on the ASEAN National Organizing Council, Duterte said he used marijuana—an illegal substance—to stay awake for strenuous sessions.
“It’s a killing activity, and I think [at] my age… me not so much because I take marijuana to stay awake,” said the 73-year-old Duterte, who said he could not attend all the related meetings consecutively.
“I really cannot do it. I don’t know how to reconfigure the style of taking up the [related meetings]. I said only the important, the most urgent, [and] the most immediate,” he added.
“But the others [ASEAN leaders], they really cannot do it. The food is not even good. My God… I brought corned beef and dried fish,” Duterte said.
Asked later about his remarks, Duterte said he was joking.
“I’m like that. If you [media] said it was a joke, I do not mind that. Of course, it was a joke, but nobody can stop me from just doing my style,” he said.
“Sometimes you told me I’m a misogynist when I fool around, that’s my style, it still needs to change. If I want to joke, I will joke. Now, if you believed it, then you are stupid,” he added.
Duterte, who promised an intensified war on drugs as his administration’s centerpiece program, said in May 2016 that he does not oppose the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes.
“Medical marijuana, yes, because it is really an ingredient of modern medicine now,” he told reporters at the time.
“There are medicines right now being developed or already in the market that [have] marijuana as a component but used for medical purposes,” he added.
He rejected the use of cannabis in cigarettes, however, saying it could make Filipino families “dysfunctional.”
WebMD notes that the effects of marijuana usage on people may differ as it is used to relieve pain and help a person relax. But it can also heighten a person’s senses.
In the same speech, Duterte complained about his tedious schedule during two-day 33rd Asean Summit in Singapore in November.
He then called on the attention of the Asean Secretariat, which manages the official activities and schedule of the Asean Summit and its related meetings.
“You know we start at 8:30 in the morning and we end up almost 10? 11? They were all there. And it’s every 30 minutes. 8:30 then 9:30, 10:30, it’s different. Maybe the Asean Secretariat thought we were boy scouts. The whole day is not enough,” he said.
“You have to give that to the technical working group or at least the lower echelons. We only take the important ones, the nuisances about other countries, never mind that. Only the urgent and immediate concerns of ASEAN,” he added.
The President said he barely slept during the ASEAN Summit and hardly had time to catch up on the related reading materials.
“You do not want your President to look ignorant or sound ignorant, so I have to catch up with the readings. There’s not much time,” he said.
During the summit, Duterte skipped five engagements to take “power naps” in between.
He only managed to attend several summits with China, Russia, Japan, United States, Plus-Three summit, East Asia Summit, and its closing ceremony as he deemed those to be important.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, a staunch anti-drug advocate, seemed to cut the President some slack, saying “marijuana is mostly to calm you down.”
“It is not an upper,” he said.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, however, said Duterte’s admission was clearly untrue.
“The President told me just now that he has never touched marijuana in his entire life,” Pimentel said.
