DND chief declares: I’m no CIA agent

He stayed for more than a decade in the United States but Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana insisted that he did not turn into an American spy.

Lorenzana said President Duterte was “just joking” when he claimed that he (Lorenzana) worked as “an agent of the United States.”

“That was meant to be just a joke– CIA agent daw [I was supposedly a CIA agent) ,” Lorenzana said in a text message to reporters in a bid to clarify the President’s recent remarks.

Lorenzana, a retired military officer, explained the President had been making the spy joke about him since they started working in the Cabinet last year.

“That was because I stayed in Washington, D.C. for 14 years from 2002-2016,” the defense chief said.

Lorenzana explained that he worked at the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC as a diplomat, starting as a defense attaché and later being engaged by the Philippine government as a special representative for veterans affairs.

“We at the Cabinet do not take those remarks by the President seriously and neither should you,” he added.