Duterte calls Tordesillas a prostitute; journo says President 'not right in the mind'

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday called veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas a “prostitute,” one of the people his government accused of plotting to oust him from office.

"She’s an every inch a prostitute," Duterte told reporters after he cast his vote in Davao City.

Tordesillas, president of Vera Files, hit back at Duterte, saying that the President "does not have evidence to support his silly matrix, he is now resorting to vulgarity - the only language he knows."

"He is not in his right mind. He is a danger to the Filipino people," she said on Facebook.

The President mentioned Tordesillas' name as he defended the matrix that linked her, other media outfits, the Liberal Party and Magdalo party-list to a plot to discredit the Duterte administration and boost the candidacies of opposition senatorial bets.

"Totoo ‘yung matrix," he said. "Bahala na kayong mag-interpret. But those lines are really not lines connections. There were a lot of communications there that were recorded."

Duterte, however, agreed that wiretapping is illegal in the Philippines.

"Sino ang nag-wiretap? I really do not know. Finished product na ‘yan eh. Then only if you use it in court it cannot be accepted as evidence," he said. — BAP/JST, GMA News