Duterte wants 15 minutes to talk during Comelec debate

Presidential aspirant Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to walk out if he would be cut short by the moderator of the debate among presidential bets that will be held tomorrow at the Capitol University in Cagayan de Oro City.

Duterte said he needs at least 15 minutes to process his thoughts and answer whatever is being asked of him in the debate.

“Sabihan ko yung (I will tell

the) moderator, kung ikaw ang gustong magdaldal, e di ikaw na

lang. E bakit mo ako iipitin (if you want to talk then it’s all yours. Why will you stop me)? I’m a slow talker. I’m deliberate.

Yung matagal maglabas (hard to expound). What I conceive in my head, the gray matter between my ears, takes a long time to express it orally,” he told reporters at the University of the Philippines campus in Quezon City last Thursday afternoon.

Duterte visited UP to listen to the concerns of vendors and campus jeepney drivers.

According to Duterte, he needs at least 15 minutes more to speak during the debate.

The Cagayan de Oro City event is part of the series of presidential debates organized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Depending on the available time, there will be three or four rounds of questions. In each round, candidates will be paired off.

For each pair, the first candidate will have 90 seconds to answer the question, the paired candidate 60 seconds to rebut, and the first candidate again 30 seconds to counter the rebuttal.

He said he would tell the moderator to shut up and then demand his additional 15 minutes to speak. Duterte also threatens to walk out of the debate and just go home if he will not get his additional time to speak.

“I will tell him to keep silent. Give me 15 minutes more. Why do you have to control? You put me under stress. I cannot talk and think. I might as well go home,” he said.

In the debate, Duterte said he would expound on his program of government.

“I will say my piece. We need to have something like law and order and we need to stop criminality, drugs and then corruption. We must fix government and then nation building. We need to talk to the revolutionary fronts, the NPA (New People’s Army) and the Muslim insurgents. Then I have to embark on economic measures,” he said.

As for questions on topics that he admitted he has no knowledge of, such as technical matters as Internet access speed, Duterte says he would simply not answer them and ask the moderator to answer the question himself.

“Sabihin ko, wala akong alam sa ganun. Wag nyo akong tanungin (I will tell him I don’t know anything about that. Don’t ask me). Why should I be nervous? I have no obligation to lie in the first place,” he said.

Instability

Meanwhile, Duterte’s vice presidential running mate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano yesterday said that should Vice President Jejomar Binay win the presidential derby, his administration would be marked with instability owing to the issues of corruption hounding him.