Philippine President Says He Sexually Abused Housemaid as a Teenager

MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
The New York Times

December 31, 2018

By Jason Gutierrez

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has admitted to sexually assaulting a housemaid when he was a teenager in a speech that drew condemnation from women’s groups, but which his office later dismissed as a joke.

Mr. Duterte has made headlines around the world for remarks that run the gamut from innocuously bawdy to dangerously sexist, including jokes about rape. His speech on Saturday to local officials, however, appeared to be the first time in which he publicly admitted to personally assaulting a woman.

In a speech that focused his ire on the Roman Catholic Church — a powerful political foil in this predominately Catholic country — and what the president sees as its hypocrisy, Mr. Duterte recounted a confession he made to a priest about entering the bedroom of a maid and assaulting her.

“I lifted the blanket,” Mr. Duterte, 73, said. “I tried to touch what was inside the panties.”

“I was touching. She woke up. So I left the room,” he added.

The priest, he said, told him to say, “five Hail Marys because you will go to hell.”

Mr. Duterte’s comments were intended to shed light on the church’s sexual abuse crisis, but instead drew outrage from his own critics, who called on him to immediately resign.

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