Former President Rodrigo Duterte denied late Tuesday that he called President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. a drug addict.

“I did not say that... Even if you kill me a thousand times, I did not say that. Make it ‘taking a drug.’ But if you say I called him a drug addict, I did not say anything like that. Marcos would kill me. Please have mercy on me, I am already old,” Duterte said in a press conference in Davao City carried on TV5 Facebook page.

“If I can say it to Marcos, I can say it for all. Antibiotics, aspirin, they’re all drugs…But I did not say that…Marcos would kill me. I am afraid of dying because I am already old,” he added.

In January, Duterte said in a speech at a rally in Davao City called his successor “high” on drugs.

He also claimed that during his time as mayor, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) showed him that Marcos was on their watch list.

PDEA denied that the incumbent President was on their list of illegal drug users.

Asked for a reaction to Duterte’s statement, Marcos laughed it off and attributed it to his predecessor’s use of fentanyl, which he said was “highly addictive” and had “serious side effects”. Jaspearl Tan/DMS