President Rodrigo Duterte has a response on the positive column of economist and broadcaster about the fight of the government against poverty.
In a press briefing on Monday, Presidential Salvador Panelo expressed surprise with Monsod’s column, saying that the latter is a critic of Duterte since he assumed office.
This made the spokesperson question if there’s a deeper reason why Monsod suddenly wrote positively about the government.
“Aren’t you surprised with that column? Aren’t you surprised this columnist is heaping praise on the President? From the time this President assumed office, she has not said any good word and then suddenly there is praising. There must be some reason. is she laying a predicate?” said Panelo.
Panelo also revealed that the President asked him to pass his message to Monsod’s column.
“Anyway, the President asked me to give his response to this columnist. He said, ‘Tell her, I hate being patronized. FU’,” Panelo said.
In her Inquirer column, Monsod said that the “Duterte administration must be congratulated” for their successful fight against Poverty.
“Not since the Ramos administration has the war on poverty been so effectively pursued; it managed to reduce family and population poverty incidence by 8.8 and 8.3 percentage points respectively between 1994 and 1997,” she said.
She also has reminded the President that he also needs to reduce rural poverty.
“Anyway, congratulations again, Mr. President. May I just remind you that in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, you target the decrease of rural poverty, not just total poverty. May we know how rural poverty fared? And since poverty is a mostly agricultural/rural phenomenon, as shown among others by the very low poverty incidence in the highly urbanized cities, tell us how the war on poverty has also fared in the agriculture sector. Hopefully, then, we can rejoice even more.” she said.