Duterte hits Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña over false claim, haughty behavior

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday threatened to slap Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña for allegedly making false claims about him including being a protector of the illegal drug trade.

Speaking at the 49th charter day celebration of Mandaue City, Duterte said he wants to meet Osmeña whom he claimed has been afflicted with hubris.

"The person who keeps on bragging that he’s been in politics for a long time who says something like this, ‘Cebu is ours. Don’t try anything.’ P___ina, g__ ka pala. If you want to leave the country, then drag Cebu to the Pacific. Leave," Duterte said in his native Cebuano.

"Hoy! Tomas! This isn't the time of the Spaniards, okay? The way you talk as if you have a very high station in life. You even said that I'm the protector of shabu," he added.

Duterte said he will slap Osmeña if they will not come to an understanding.

"Don't believe that you are someone better. If we don’t understand each other, I will slap you in front of people,” the President said.

"Don’t mess with me because I’m not a Cebuano that you can push around. I’m not a local here that you can bully. Who are you to say that? As if you own Cebu. By what right? Just because you were a former president's son or grandson?"

Osmeña is a grandson of the late former President Sergio Osmeña Sr. whose term of office was from 1944 to 1946.

The mayor, in response, said the President is "entitled to say whatever he wants."

"As a lawyer, I am sure that he knows there are two sides to any story, and not just what Dino (Presidential Assistant to the Visayas Michael Dino) and PRO-7 (Police Regional Office-7) are telling him,” Osmeña said in a Facebook post.

“The first step in solving a problem is to admit there is a problem, and if the police refuse to admit there is a problem because 'Cebu is still safe,' then they are only making it worse,” he added, as the mayor cited the spate of killings in the city including the case of a 71-year-old businesswoman who was shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen last week. 

Osmeña said he will continue to "act in the interest" of his constituents.

“If I have to be the bad guy for mentioning that there is a problem, so be it. No problem, this is what I signed up for,” the mayor said. — BAP/KBK, GMA News