Last night, in another one of his tirades, President Rodrigo Duterte — who repeated the story of how ABS-CBN allegedly accepted PHP2 million (US$40,000) without airing his campaign commercials — cursed at the network’s chairman.
Or at least he tried to. Instead, he ended up cussing at “Gabby Concepcion,” who is not the chairman of the media conglomerate but a movie star.
“Who cussed at you before? Gabby Concepcion, you’re greedy, fuck you. It’s true,” Duterte said at the 120th anniversary of the Department of Justice in the Philippine International Convention Center.
Earlier in the speech, Duterte had mentioned Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, the chairman of ABS-CBN Corporation.
“ABS-CBN, you too. You should have been held hostage with Gabby Lopez there, I should’ve let them take you,” he said, referring to the 1989 Davao Penal Colony hostage crisis during the early years of his mayorship.
When Duterte was still mayor of Davao City, he hosted a local weekly TV program on ABS-CBN called Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa (From the masses, for the masses) where he would directly address community matters and concerns from residents in Davao City.
Probably realizing that he made a mistake, Duterte corrected himself the third time he referred to a “Gabby.”
“Listen up, Gabby Lopez — I placed an advertisement. You accepted my money so that I couldn’t have an advertisement,” he said.
Lopez is one of three other media executives Duterte has publicly chastised after the Prieto family, who owned the Philippine Daily Inquirer, until they sold it recently to San Miguel Corporation tycoon Ramon Ang.
READ: Duterte buddy Ramon Ang set to buy majority stake in Philippine Daily Inquirer
Duterte also accused online media company Rappler of being owned by Americans, which is illegal under current Philippine media laws.
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