SENATOR Leila de Lima on Friday called President Rodrigo Duterte a misogynist and a chauvinist, but the Chief Executive shrugged off her comments, saying she was ugly anyway.
De Lima on Friday reacted to Duterte, who said “she not only screwed her driver, she was screwing her nation”–referring to allegations that she used her former driver and lover to collect drug money from the national penitentiary.
In a text message to reporters, De Lima said: “Duterte’s latest verbal abuse against me is simply characteristic of his being a misogynist and chauvinist.”
“That’s all it is and there is no need to dignify it with any further reply,” she said, saying it was regrettable that the President has sunk so low. “God help our country,” she added.
Duterte, however, showed no signs of letting up on the abuse, saying he chose to ignore De Lima because she was ugly (“pangit”).
Speaking at the inauguration of a power plant in Misamis Oriental, Duterte assailed De Lima’s “propensity for sex.”
He also said her attacks on his human rights record was “just politics” and said former House Speaker Prospero Nograles, a political rival, was helping her by sending photos of anyone who had died in Mindanao— even if they had just been run over in a road accident.
“They’re friends,” he said in Filipino of De Lima and Nograles. “They’re both ugly.”
