President Duterte caught the new FDA chief by surprise and asked him if he really love him.
PRESIDENT DUTERTE — On Monday evening, the Philippine President shared a light moment with members of the government’s pandemic task force when he caught FDA OIC Director-General Oscar Gutierrez by surprise and asked him if he really love him.
The President’s joke came after Gutierrez, who had finished giving a presentation about COVID-19 treatments and tests undergoing evaluation by the Food and Drug Administration, referred to him as “Mahal na Presidente”.
In response to Gutierrez’s closing remark, President Duterte asked the former if he really meant it.
“Totoo ka, mahal mo talaga ako?” President Duterte asked Gutierrez, and, for a while there, the new FDA chief could have been counting the ways.
The President’s sudden quip drew some chuckle from those who were physically present during the “Talk to the People” public briefing aired on Monday evening, January 17.
Gutierrez was first taken aback and couldn’t muster a reply before the President himself broke the dead air by asking him if he spoke Bisaya.
“Kahibalo ko sa Bisaya, sir,” Gutierrez answered.
The President then said that Gutierrez used a word that gave him away: “ku-an” — a term of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian roots which was used as a placeholder name of a thing or a person, which would have been pronounced as “kuwan” by those who spoke Tagalog.
According to Gutierrez, he’s actually born and raised in Davao City and finished high school at Ateneo de Davao.
Currently, Gutierrez was leading the Food and Drug Administration following the resignation of former FDA Director-General Eric Domingo last January 3.
READ ALSO | President Duterte On Weekly Public Address: “Somebody has to communicate to the people”
Meanwhile, the President said that COVID-19 continued to worry the government as it remained to be the top threat to Filipinos aside from the New People’s Army (NPA).
President Duterte likewise admitted to hoping that the number of coronavirus cases in the Philippines has already peaked, but he was informed by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III that it wasn’t the case yet.
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