Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte (left) and Senator Alan Peter Cayetano (right). (Inquirer photo)
In parrying attacks against him, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte criticized the administration’s standard bearer Mar Roxas, testifying in a speech in Taguig why his rival cannot handle stress.
“Mar (Roxas) gave the victims (of “Yolanda”) uncooked rice. Why will you give them rice when they don’t have pot and water to cook them?” Duterte said on Friday night before business partners of the Taguig City government during its Thanksgiving dinner.
The tough-talking Duterte previously recounted how the former interior secretary acted during the first few days of the government’s response in areas struck by supertyphoon Yolanda even before he declared his presidential bid in an interview with the Inquirer in August this year, but requested it to be off the record.
“The people if under stress would first of all ask for water. You must distribute water first and food that are ready to eat,” Duterte said. “I said ‘don’t give them uncooked rice,” he said.
The Davao City mayor likewise criticized the administration for declaring a state of calamity instead of a state of emergency.
He reminded the audience how Roxas was caught on video berating Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez and saying “You have to be careful because you are a Romualdez, and the President is an Aquino.”