Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte has walked into controversy again by kissing a married woman on the lips during a speech in South Korea.
The president kissed a young Filipino worker in Seoul after inviting her up to a stage, drawing cheers from the crowd of fellow overseas workers.
Egged on by the audience the seemingly star-struck woman kissed and hugged Duterte after he reportedly said she had to ‘pay with a kiss’.
But the women’s movement Gabriela slammed Duterte’s antics, saying it was a ‘perverted way of getting back at his women critics’.
The president kissed a young Filipino worker in Seoul after inviting her up to a stage, drawing cheers from the crowd of fellow overseas workers
The president asked for women in the audience to receive a copy of a book, the Philippine Star reported.
He invited one of them to the stage said: ‘You have to pay me with a kiss. Are you ready for kissing?’
After the embrace Duterte is said to have told the audience it was ‘just a gimmick to make the people happy’.
A statement from the women’s group said: ‘GABRIELA views President Duterte’s recent kissing of a migrant Filipina as the disgusting theatrics of a misogynist President who feels entitled to demean, humiliate or disrespect women according to his whim.
‘Such acts of President Duterte are only intended to divert the people from the real and pressing issues of the country.
‘His repeated acts of machismo are meant as entertainment to hide the reality of his rapidly slipping popularity.’
Another critic hit out at Duterte on Twitter, saying: ‘The line between ethical and unethical, moral and immoral are blurred to Duterte as long it serves his personal interests.’
Duterte was previously accused of misogyny when he ‘joked’ that his soldiers could rape women and he would go to prison for them.
The president asked for women in the audience to receive a copy of a book, invited one to the stage and said: ‘You have to pay me with a kiss. Are you ready for kissing?’
Egged on by the audience the seemingly star-struck woman kissed and hugged Duterte after he reportedly said she had to ‘pay with a kiss’
A women’s group slammed Duterte’s actions as ‘disgusting theatrics of a misogynist President’
Visiting a military base near Marawi last year, where government forces were preparing to fight ISIS-aligned terrorists, he said: ‘If you rape three (women), I will say that I did it.’
Earlier this year he was condemned for saying troops should shoot female communist rebels in the genitals to render them ‘useless’.
The U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said the remark was the latest in a ‘series of misogynist, derogatory and demeaning statements he has made about women’.
And in 2016, while running for President, Duterte made a joke about the rape and murder of an Australian woman in the city where he was mayor.
In a reference to the brutal gang rape and murder of missionary Jacqueline Hamill at a Davao City jail, he said: ‘When the bodies were brought out, they were wrapped.
‘What came to mind was, they raped her, they lined up. I was angry because she was raped, that’s one thing. But she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first.’