President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday took personal potshots at senators leading a congressional probe into allegations that his government purchased overpriced pandemic supplies in 2020.
But Senators Richard Gordon, whom he ridiculed as being overweight, and Panfilo Lacson, whom he suggested was “different” because of the way he combed his hair, quickly fired back.
Lacson said he hasn’t changed the way he combs his hair since long before “the President lost his mind,” while Gordon said he would surely win over Duterte when it comes to being “a good-looking guy.”
Duterte said lawmakers were asking “leading questions” during a hearing that ran for around 7 hours.
“You’d create a crisis here. I do not know if it would be—if that’s your vice, I will not allow any Cabinet member to go to Congress to testify,” the President said in a taped speech that aired on Tuesday. “Do what you want, do whatever you’ll do,” he added.
Irked over Gordon’s long speech during a seven-hour Senate hearing, Duterte described Gordon as a “talkathon champion,” saying he talked too much during the hearings on the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 funds at the Department of Health (DOH).
“He talks too much, he asks the questions, he also answers them. And he knows what is wrong and correct,” Duterte said.
He even likened Gordon to a “German interrogator” during the Nazi regime.
“I’m sure Gordon realizes or [has] realized it a very long time ago that he has that nasty practice of depriving others of asking questions. But, you know, the guy simply wants to talk and show off to the world that he is a bright boy,” he said.
Then he took potshots at Gordon’s weight, advising the senator to lose some.
Turning his attention to Lacson, Duterte said: “Even your hair, it’s different…”
The President warned Lacson that there was information that will be floated in the coming days but did not say what this was.
He also said Lacson was politicking because he was running for president in 2022,
Duterte urged the public not to let the reelectionist senators win because they would just “keep talking and showing off.
Duterte’s verbal tirades against Gordon came, as he once again defended embattled Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, maintaining that the Health chief does not deserve the criticisms because he is merely doing his job amid the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic.
He said it was obvious that Gordon and Lacson are merely grandstanding to gain publicity.
Duterte said Gordon and Lacson were merely trying to distract Duque who he said is merely doing his job to defeat Covid-19.
He also vouched for Duque’s integrity, saying he believes that the Health chief is not involved in irregularities.
He then told the senators to stop trying to “run” the Department of Health (DOH) just because it is currently being considered “high-profile” due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Duterte also told Gordon and Lacson not to focus on DOH, saying there are other government agencies that have also been flagged by the Commission on Audit.
Gordon laughed off the President’s latest tirades.
“Why is he calling me fat? I know I am fat,” he said in Filipino. “But I reckon I’d win over you when it comes to being a good-looking guy.”
Lacson, meanwhile, said many people he talked to have noticed the President’s incoherence and senseless ad libs even in his formal addresses to the nation, including the State of the Nation Address (SONA).
With this, Lacson said it is not difficult to think that the President is “in panic mode and is attempting” as he has already done earlier to discourage the Senate from pursuing our investigation in the highly anomalous procurement of overpriced medical supplies that is starting to knock on the doors of Malacañang.
He said the video showing Michael Yang, a Chinese national who had a signed contract as a presidential consultant, receiving a one-peso-a-year remuneration from the government and very casually introducing high officials of the controversial Pharmally Corp. is telling, to say the least.
READ: Duterte defends Yang, Lao over COVID deals
Yang was previously linked to drug trafficking by former police official Eduardo Acierto, who once headed the now-defunct police Anti-Illegal Drugs Group.
The allegation was both denied by Malacañang and the Philippine National Police (PNP).
In October 2018, Duterte also cleared Yang of any involvement in the illegal drug trade and had said that Zhao also vouched for the businessman’s integrity.