In a turnaround from his previous defense of President Rodrigo Duterte, former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque admitted that the President’s controversial kiss with a Filipino woman on the sidelines of a state visit to South Korea was “inappropriate.”

Asked by comedian Vice Ganda in his “Gandang Gabi Vice” television program on Sunday if he thought there was anything that the President did or said that was not proper, Roque said it was the controversial kiss in June this year.

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‘I thought I’d die’

“First of all, there’s the kissing. I’d thought I’d die there … The kissing in Korea, if you’d remember,” he said.

Roque was referring to the President’s controversial kiss with the Seoul-based woman during his meeting with the Filipino community there in June.

Back then, the President drew flak over the kiss, which Roque defended as nothing immoral but a light gesture accepted in Filipino culture.

Now, Roque is singing a different tune. He said a buss on the cheeks would have sufficed.

“It’s lips to lips; it could have been a simple buss on the cheeks, a buss on the cheeks, or a hug. But that was a lips to lips in slow motion,” Roque said.

Kept in the dark

Earlier, Roque lamented being kept in the dark about the President’s health and his whereabouts, which he said made him doubt if he was an effective spokesperson.

When Roque took a leave of absence to attend a conference in China, the President’s chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, replaced him as spokesperson.

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Roque announced on Monday that he would run as party-list representative of Luntian Pilipinas in the 2019 midterm elections on the advise of the President, who earlier told him to drop his Senate bid.

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