Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte this week claimed that he was once gay but that he “cured” himself during his relationship with his former wife.
Duterte made the comments while mocking the body movements of his political opponent Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV during a speech Thursday, Filipino news organization Rappler reported.
Duterte claimed that Trillanes’s movements show he is gay, according to the report, while adding that he was gay before he met his ex-wife Elizabeth Zimmerman.{mosads}
“Good thing Trillanes and I are similar. But I cured myself,” Duterte said, according to Rappler. “When I began a relationship with Zimmerman, I said, this is it. I became a man again.”
“Duterte is gay. So I am gay, I don’t care if I’m gay or not,” he later added.
Rappler noted that Duterte has held inconsistent views on the issue of LGBT rights in the Philippines.
During his presidential campaign, Duterte initially said gay people were created by God and the Bible should have recognized homosexuality, the outlet stated.
“Same-sex marriage is good. Everyone deserves to be happy,” Duterte said on the country’s popular talk show “Vice Ganda” back in 2015.
Once in office two years later, however, Duterte rejected the legalization of same-sex marriage during a speech criticizing transgender acceptance in the U.S.
“There’s no gender, because you can be or she … that’s their culture. That’s only for them,” he said, according to the outlet. “That can’t be applied to us, we’re Catholics. And there is the Civil Code, which is you can only marry a woman for me, and for woman to marry a man. That’s the law in the Philippines.”
Duterte also made headlines in 2016 when he said then-President Obama can “go to hell” and referred to the U.S. ambassador as “gay” and a “son of a whore.”