President Rodrigo Duterte"was very cool" about the controversial video performance on federalism by his communication official along with a blogger, Malacanang said on Tuesday.

However, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte, who watched the video posted on the Facebook page of Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Mocha Uson, wanted a "more rational approach" in disseminating the information about the administration-backed federalism.

"The president was very cool about it...he's a first and foremost a believer in freedom of expression. But of course, he knows that charter change has to be more serious, but to him, it was not really a big thing," he said.

"He would want a more rational approach to the dissemination," Roque added.

On Uson's facebook page, a video was posted of her supposed talk about federalism with her co-host blogger Andrew Olivar.

It was Olivar who performed a malicious dance number regarding federalism. He was seen dancing while singing "i-pepe" and "i-dede," while pointing to both parts of the body, before completing the word federalism.

This drew negative reactions from the public, including senators.

With the controversial video, Roque, however, admitted this could have helped in increasing awareness of the public regarding federalism, but not in the way the government wants it.

"I guess everyone's talking federalism probably not in the way that we want them to talk about federalism but certainly we're sure that the number of people who don't know what federalism has gone down," he said.

However, Roque added, "Let's just transform the debate now into something more substantive." Celerina Monte/DMS