President Rodrigo Duterte’s meltdown in his late-night address on Tuesday, November 17, sparked the hashtags #DuterteMeltdown and #NasiraanAngPangulo to top Philippine Twitter trends.

Filipinos online called out the President’s sexist remarks and false claims against Vice President Leni Robredo. 

The President used the first part of his air time to rant against Robredo who has been widely praised for her efforts to help those affected by the onslaught of Super Typhoon Rolly and Typhoon Ulysses.

“The first emotional breakdown of the President of the Philippines is not for sympathy to his fellow men but for his insecurities toward the working woman,” said @EngrERGrullo on Twitter. 

During his meltdown, Duterte not only sought to discredit Robredo’s disaster response efforts but also attempted to attack her character. In response, Robredo shared a video of her staff packing relief goods late at night.

#NasiraanAngPangulo is also trending with 8,161 tweets as of 8:40 am on Wednesday, November 18 – a play on words to the recent hashtag #NasaanAngPangulo which the President also falsely claimed that Robredo started.  

Duterte was criticized the past weeks for his absence in typhoon response. “Hindi ninyo alam na nagtatrabaho ako, na-timing-an lang nitong summit,” (You didn’t know that I’m working; it just councided with the ASEAN Summit).” Duterte explained, referring to the ASEAN Summit that coincided when Typhoon Ulysses ravaged parts of the country.

Still other netizens pointed out that Duterte could have skipped the ASEAN Summit and let his foreign secretary take his place, just as he had done in September 2016, when he skipped the ASEAN-US Summit because of a “migraine.”

– Rappler.com