Marcos: No room for 'paninira, paghahatakan pababa' in Bagong Pilipinas

There is no room for mudslinging and dirty politics in "Bagong Pilipinas," President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said Sunday.

"Sa isang Bagong Pilipinas, walang puwang ang mga paninira at paghahatakan pababa,” the President said in a video on his YouTube channel.

“Unahin natin ang ating bayan. Magbago na tayo dahil walang Bagong Pilipinas kung walang bagong Pilipino,” he added.

Last week, the Marcos administration held the "Bagong Pilipinas” kick-off rally at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila.

On the same day, former President Rodrigo Duterte also spoke at a prayer rally in Davao City where he accused Marcos of being a drug addict.

Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, meanwhile, called for the President's resignation after describing him as a lazy chief executive.

Duterte also said a Cabinet official uses cocaine with Marcos, and insisted that Marcos was on the watchlist of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) - a claim already denied by PDEA.

He also asked Marcos to state why he supposedly underwent rehabilitation in Germany before the start of the campaign period for the 2022 presidential election.

Marcos then responded by saying in an interview that Duterte has been taking fentanyl, which had side effects.

Duterte later dared Marcos to undergo a drug test in public to prove that he was not a drug user.

“Ito ay panawagan para sa kolektibong kilos tungo sa pagbabago ng ating pag-iisip, pananalita at gawa. Ito ay hindi pagtakip sa kung anong kakulangan man ang mayroon," Marcos said.

"Ito ay imbitasyon sa bawat isa na kabahagi ka sa paghahanda at pagpapaganda ng ating bansa,” he added in the video message. — DVM, GMA Integrated News