Visiting President Rodrigo Duterte joked before a Filipino community in Japan on Thursday that he once managed to cure his homosexuality.

Duterte, who has jested in the past he used to be gay, made the remark as he asked the audience of mostly overseas Filipino workers on whether his top critic, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, is gay.

He then quipped that he was able to cure himself.

"Mabuti na lang nagamot ko ang sarili ko," he said.

(It's a good thing I was able to cure myself.)

"Nung nakita ko si Mutya, sabi ko, ito na, naging lalaki ako uli," he said, referring to his partner Honeylet Avanceña, a 1988 Mutya ng Dabaw runner-up.

(When I saw Mutya, I said that I'm a man again.)

Homosexuality, as per the World Health Organization (WHO), is classified as a sexual orientation and not a disorder.

The WHO has maintained that “sexual orientation by itself is not to be considered a disorder."