If you’re in love with an addict, leave him: Duterte

Avoid men like that. Nothing will happen to your lives. The pretty ones, leave the handsome ones if that’s all they are. If your boyfriend uses marijuana, you think it’s the fad? You think it’s fashionable?”President Rodrigo R. Duterte said. (Richard Madelo/Presidential File Photo)

MANILA — President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Tuesday night gave a piece of advice to teenage girls who are dating: “If you’re in love with an addict, leave him.”

Duterte made this remark discouraging teenage girls from dating addicts, whom he described as “idiots” and “cowards.”

“Sabi ko nga sa mga babae (I told girls), if you are in love with an addict, leave him. He’s not a man. He’s a coward and he’s an idiot. Imagine, you cannot resist taking a drug that will destroy your body,” Duterte said in his speech during the League of Municipalities of the Philippines Visayas Island Cluster Conference in Cebu City.

Duterte said that it was not worth dating a good-looking man if he only turned out to be addicted to illegal drugs like marijuana.

“Avoid ‘yung mga lalaki na ganun. Walang mangyari sa buhay ninyo. ‘Yung magaganda, iwanan niyo yung mga guwapo, hanggang guwapo lang ‘yan. Yung boyfriend niyo nagma-marijuana, (Avoid men like that. Nothing will happen to your lives. The pretty ones, leave the handsome ones if that’s all they are. If your boyfriend uses marijuana) you think it’s the fad? You think it’s fashionable?” he added.

The President urged them not to believe drug users, who claimed they only used drugs “sometimes.”

“There’s no thing as paminsan-minsan (using drugs sometimes),”

He also urged the public to report drug cases to Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Officer-in-Charge Eduardo Año.

“If there is a drug problem which you cannot solve, go to Secretary Año. Tell him the problem and he will solve it for you,” Duterte said.

Año earlier expressed support for the relentless drug war which Duterte vowed during his third State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“The DILG and our attached agencies are one with the President in his vision of providing a comfortable and peaceful life for every Filipino without the menace of illegal drugs, crime and corruption,” Año said.

“We will support him in every step of the way to ensure that this vision will be fulfilled,” he added.