The Philippines' bachelor president, Benigno Aquino, confirmed Wednesday that he had put the fizz back into his love life by dating a South Korean media personality more than 20 years his junior.

"Well, we're seeing each other, OK?" the Filipino leader, who turns 52 next week, told reporters when asked about rumours swirling in the local press about him dating Grace Lee.

Lee, 29, who moved to the Philippines as a child, co-hosts a popular music radio programme in Manila as well as several television shows. She has nearly 60,000 followers on Twitter.

Lee was also featured by the local edition of men's magazine FHM as one of its "100 Sexiest Women of the World" in 2010.

Confirmation that the balding, bespectacled president was dating again came after he said last year that the fizz had gone out of his love-life, describing it as going from "Coke regular" to "Coke zero".

Aquino said then that he was resigned to the idea of staying single until his term as president ended in mid-2016 because the demands of his job were too great.

Nevertheless, one of his sisters told the local media in late 2010 that he had dated at least three other younger women, including his personal stylist, in the hectic period after he was elected to the presidency in May that year.

Aquino, who generally bristles at the intense media interest in his personal life, declined to provide further details of his romance with Lee.

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)