Duterte: ‘Mamatay ako ‘pag walang babae, sa totoo lang’

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday said that he was a lover of women and he could not live without them.

Duterte, in a speech in Bataan, asked the audience whether there were resorts in the province where he could see women in bikinis.

“Dito sa inyo may resort? May naliligo, naka-bikini bikini din sila? Kasi magpasyal ako,” Duterte said.

He drew laughter from the audience that included Bb. Pilipinas International 2019 Bea Patricia Magtanong, a native of Bataan.

“Not really because I am misogynist. I am a just a lover of a woman. Mamatay ako ‘pag walang babae, sa totoo lang," Duterte said.

Duterte's marriage to Elizabeth Zimmerman was annulled in 2000. He is currently in a relationship with Honeylet Avanceña. 

Several quarters had criticized Duterte for his derogatory remarks against women, including linking women’s beauty to rape, ordering troops to shoot female rebels in the vagina, joking about the gang rape and murder of an Australian missionary, and telling soldiers to rape women in Marawi at the height of the military campaign against the Islamic State-inspired Maute group that laid siege to the city in 2017.

He also drew criticism for claiming that he “touched” his maid when he was a teenager, making a sexist remark toward to a female Bohol mayor and kissing a Filipino woman on stage during his visit to South Korea in June last year.

Malacañang has insisted that the President was not anti-women. —NB, GMA News