DAVAO City Rep. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte and his political rival, Rep. Margarita “Migs” Nograles (PL, PBA), who will challenge the former’s post in the 2025 midterm elections, took drugs tests yesterday after Vice President Sara Duterte challenged them to submit themselves to drug tests before seeking re-election.
Rep. Duterte, reacting to her younger sister, on Tuesday night dared Nograles to undertake a hair follicle test with him.
“I dare my opponent for the position of representative of Davao City’s first district, who is said to be a member of the so-called ‘Young Goons’ in Congress — or is it ‘Guns’ — to also undergo a hair follicle test,” he said.
He said the challenge “is for the sake of the public and our constituents to guarantee that those who serve the people are clean and free from any involvement in illegal drugs.”
Nograles, daughter of the late former Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr., took a hair follicle drug test at a diagnostic facility in Bajada, Davao City, the Dutertes’ bailiwick.
“At the end of the day, I don’t take it as a challenge. This is for accountability, transparency,” said Nograles, whose brother, former Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, will challenge former president Rodrigo Duterte, father of Sara and Paolo, for the city’s mayoralty post next year.
Karlo, a former Duterte appointee, recently resigned as chairperson of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), signaling his family’s comeback in local politics.
Rep. Duterte took the same hair follicle drug test in Mandaluyong City, which Nograles said she appreciated, since what Rep. Duterte earlier released was an old result of the same test he took last August.
“I haven’t seen him in Davao, but at least we were able to do it (take the drug test), even if not in the same area,” Nograles said.
In an interview last Tuesday, the Vice President said she was willing to undergo a televised neuropsychiatric exam after administration lawmakers questioned her mental stability for threatening to exhume and dump the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the West Philippine Sea and admitting that she had once daydreamed about cutting off the head of current President Marcos Jr.
She then dared administration congressmen to undergo drug tests before seeking re-election in the 2025 midterm elections, to be administered by the Philippine Medical Association.
