President Rodrigo Duterte slammed on Tuesday Vice President Leni Robredo for previously criticizing him over his statement about policemen receiving gifts.

In a speech in Malacañang, Duterte said when he made a statement before that policemen could receive gifts out of gratitude, what he meant were "nominal" gifts.

"What I've told them (police and military), there will never be a time that I will order you to do an illegal act. Just like this... A simple question of whether government employees or policemen or military men can accept gifts," he said.

"I said, 'yes.' It is provided in the Anti-Graft And Corrupt Practices law...there’s a law which says you can and when I talked about it, I precisely used the word --- what's in the book," he said.

When he made the statement, Duterte said Senator Panfilo Lacson and Robredo immediately negatively reacted.

"Then this one who wants to be a president who took the bar exam twice. I said that's why, she criticized me for two days. I said, 'Ma'am, you're a lawyer. Read the book first because I read it'," he said, referring to Robredo.

He said he could ignore Lacson for his criticisms against him because he is not a lawyer and he is also his friend, but not in the case of Robredo.

"As a matter of fact, before I open my mouth, I read the law. You can sure of that. I really read it. It is allowed. Token, nominal. But it’s allowed," he said.

When Duterte first made the remarks that police could receive gifts, he did not make any qualification that the amount should be nominal.

It was only Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo who made the qualification about the gifts.

"What is nominal? Perhaps it's up to the judge (to determine)," Duterte said. Celerina Monte/DMS