News anchor Pinky Webb once again gained traction on local Twitter, this time due to her “hair flip” gesture in a televised interview with presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Wednesday.
During the interview, the Palace official, who earned his law degree from the University of the Philippines and was a long-time professor at the university, was asked by Webb for his opinion on the tweet of fellow faculty member Danilo Arao.
The latter posed a challenge to the university’s alumni working as top-level officials in the Duterte administration in light of the UP-Department of National Defense Accord termination.
“CHALLENGE: UP faculty and alumni who are Duterte’s top-level officials should denounce Lorenzana’s letter terminating the 1989 accord. This disregards everything that UP stands for. Should they remain silent, a six-word question: Where is your honor and excellence?” Arao tweeted on Monday.
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Roque responded: “There’s really no such thing when you are a Presidential spokesperson.”
“All I’m saying is, let’s talk about this, I support the steps of the UP President, and let’s see why a 30-year-old accord should not be continued when it has worked, apparently perfectly well, in the past 30 years,” he added.
“I’m not duty-bound by anything that Prof. Areo says,” the spokesperson further said.
Roque later on remarked that Webb’s question was “unfair” and reiterated his previous stance.
“In the first place, why am I duty-bound to follow anything that Prof. Arao says?” he asked.
“You made it appear as if it’s compulsory to follow it,” Roque added.
Webb responded that she did not tell him he was “duty-bound” but Roque insisted that such was the case.
“But you said I had to follow him, and if I did not do as he did then I have no honor or excellence. Is that a fair question? That’s not,” the spokesman said.
Webb once again clarified that she only asked for the spokesman’s views on Arao’s tweet and whether he agrees with it.
However, Roque claimed that Webb implied he has “no sense of excellence or honor” if he doesn’t agree with Arao, which was immediately refuted by the journalist.
Webb later asked the presidential spokesman how he would like to end the topic, in which he responded that he would like to facilitate a discussion between UP president Danilo Concepcion and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in light of the UP-DND Accord.
A clip of the interview circulated on the microblogging platform, prompting Webb’s to enter the top trending list on Wednesday afternoon.
Yung G na G si Harry Roque tapos flip lang ng flip ng hair si Pinky Webb. Love it! Hahaha! pic.twitter.com/9hB2aLqTdQ
— PoloJordano27 (@polojordano) January 20, 2021
Twitter users took notice of how Webb did a “hair flip” gesture amid the interview where Roque lost his cool.
A Filipino commented that the Palace official was “clearly offended” by her query, based on his reaction.
Others were amused by Webb’s reaction to Roque and called her gesture a “mood.”
“Pinky Webb’s composure is amazing where do I learn this HAHAHAHAHAHA,” another Twitter user wrote in response to the viral clip.
“The way she flipped her hair HAHAJHSAH. She ain’t about Roque’s b*llsh*t HHAHSHS,” exclaimed a different online user.
“The president says women are not suitable for a high position in the government (’cause) they are too ’emotional’ yet we have Roque here getting pissed over an interview and having 0% composure. Look at the way Pinky Webb handled this man’s fragile masculinity,” another Filipino commented.
Webb’s gesture was also transformed into a GIF or a graphics interchange format.
ABS-CBN broadcast journalist Jeff Canoy shared it on his timeline with the caption, “Amen.”
Amen. pic.twitter.com/SZrGQL0JSJ
— Jeff Canoy (@jeffcanoy) January 20, 2021
This was not the first time that Webb caught the online community’s attention because of an interview.
Last March, the CNN Philippines anchor debunked speculations that Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon was “asleep” in a televised interview she hosted where the opposition senator talked about the resolutions he filed to extend ABS-CBN’s franchise before.
READ: Case closed, eyes were open: Pinky Webb on what happened with Drilon interview
Webb responded to a Twitter user who asked what really went down during the interview with Drilon and informed him that the senator only looked down at his documents on the table, which was not visible to the viewers at that time.
Here’s what happened. As I was laying the premise for my question, I saw Sen Drilon look down at the documents he had on the table. I did not see him fall asleep. https://t.co/ga9kxyBFBY
— Pinky Webb (@iampinkywebb) March 2, 2020
A clip of the interview was edited to make it appear as if he fell asleep on-air.
When the edited video went viral, Drilon was defended by his former subordinate in a law firm, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., and former senator JV Ejercito, who lauded the lawmaker’s work ethics when they were colleagues.
