Palace spokesman Harry Roque on Thursday said some of President Rodrigo Duterte’s remarks were edited before airing to remove parts not meant for public consumption.
“We are editing it because it’s not just an address to the nation; it’s also a meeting with select members of the Cabinet,” Roque explained.
“We edit out the portions which are not for public consumption because… there is executive privilege, so that is why we edit the airing of his messages because it’s intertwined with the meeting with some of his Cabinet members,” he added.
Duterte usually meets with Cabinet and Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases members on late nights. In some instances, meetings were aired the next morning.
In July, Malacañang drew flak for airing an edited Duterte speech that omitted parts where the president threw tirades against the shuttered TV giant ABS-CBN.
Malacañang had insisted on multiple occasions Duterte’s neutrality on the ABS-CBN franchise issue.
In the unedited version obtained by various media outfits, however, Duterte mentioned ABS-CBN as among the oligarchs he had dismantled during his presidency.
Roque said Malacañang was considering airing live speeches similar to Palace briefings to dispel rumors on Duterte’s health.
“We’re talking about it,” Roque said. John Ezekiel J. Hirro