Duterte, Go meet with Pacquiao
DAVAO City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio is not considering running for vice president, a close ally of the presidential daughter said yesterday amid rumors she may slide down and partner with presidential aspirant former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said he was able to talk to Duterte-Carpio an hour before
“everything went down” last Tuesday, when she withdrew her candidacy for reelection.
“There’s no VP option for her and picking a VP for her is not a problem,” Salceda told ANC.
“Ang sabi kasi niya, she’s now a last-minute candidate (She said she is now a last-minute candidate).”
The deadline for filing of certificates of candidacy was in October but the law allows the substitution of candidates until November 15.
Salceda last May said Duterte-Carpio reached the decision to run for president just months after her father, in a speech in January, said the presidency is not a job for women. He also said Duterte-Carpio “did not have to agonize over it because she knows she is capable” and “it is 100 percent certain that she is running in 2022.”
Salceda, in the ANC interview yesterday, dismissed as mere “speculation” talks that Duterte-Carpio will be Marcos’ vice presidential candidate.
“I’m not sure about that. Definitely that’s speculation because she’s running for president.
All these political gyrations just shows she’s going toward the presidency,” he said.
Salceda said he has also heard reports that Duterte-Carpio and Marcos will meet in Balesin Island in Quezon today with former president Gloria Arroyo who will try to forge a unification ticket. Salceda said he was not among those invited to the meeting.
Arroyo, who is running for representative of Pampanga again, is expected to reclaim her post as speaker under a Duterte-Carpio or a Marcos presidency.
Salceda said Duterte-Carpio, who is most likely to run under Arroyo’s Lakas-CMD, never changed her mind because she wanted to be president since May, when Salceda first announced that Sara was gunning for the country’s top post.
“She wanted to be president in the first place since May,” Salceda said. “There were just stumbling blocks towards it. So in order to clear it, ‘di naman niya pwedeng diktahan ang tatay niya (She can’t dictate on her father) so she had her way of clearing these roadblocks. She wants to be president.”
Duterte-Carpio said in September that she is not seeking higher office after her father accepted the nomination as vice presidential candidate of a faction of the ruling PDP-Laban, stressing that only one of them can run for a national position next year.
When the President decided not to pursue his vice presidential bid and support Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go as vice presidential candidate, Duterte-Carpio filed her certificate for candidacy for reelection as Davao City mayor only to withdraw it last Tuesday.
She withdrew from the mayoralty race on the same day that her brother, Davao City Vice Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, withdrew his candidacy for reelection.
“There is that unyielding firmness to purpose. Ang dami (So many things), everything thrown at her from the side of her father,” Salceda said.
Salceda said the President’s daughter will “definitely” announce her bid earlier than November 15.
WELCOME AS VP
Marcos’ camp said Duterte-Carpio is very much welcome to be their standard bearer’s running mate, brushing aside rumors that Marcos will be forced to slide down as the presidential daughter’s vice presidential candidate.
“What we’re focused on and giving emphasis to is on his run as the country’s president because he’s the most qualified,” Thompson Lantion, secretary general of the former senator’s Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), told reporters in Filipino.
Lantion said the presidential daughter is welcome to join Marcos if she genuinely believes in the political platform of the son of the late dictator who was ousted in the 1986 “Edsa People Power Revolution.”
He said Duterte-Carpio made it clear she was not interested in running for president when she recently met with Marcos in Cebu.
“Sa pag-uusap na ‘yun ay sinabi nga ng ating mayora ng Davao City na wala siyang balak tumakbo bilang pangulo (In that meeting, our Davao City mayor said she does not have any plans to run as president),” Lantion said.
The PDP faction under Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said: “PDP-Laban watches with keen interest the developments on Sara Duterte’s decision to withdraw her certificate of candidacy for Davao City Mayor, especially considering the public support she enjoys. In any event, her actions, including any decision to run for a national elective office, will most certainly affect the political landscape.”
The faction’s presidential bet is Sen. Ronald dela Rosa and Go is the vice presidential candidate. Dela Rosa has been saying he is willing to give way to Duterte-Carpio.
The other faction has Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao and Rep. Lito Atienza as presidential and vice presidential bets.
President Duterte and Pacquiao met on Tuesday night, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said last night confirming reports.
“It was a short and cordial meeting requested by the camp of the good Senator. Sen. Christopher Lawrence `Bong’ Go was also in attendance. There was no talk of politics but a renewal of friendship. More importantly, it was a meeting between two national leaders from Mindanao, who discussed certain matters related to people’s concern in their area, specifically in the infrastructure and power industry.”
Go on Tuesday hinted there will be changes in the Cusi faction’s lineup and he might be affected but did not elaborate.
DQ CASE
Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition’s presidential aspirant, laughed off Marcos Jr.’s call for her to order her supporters to withdraw the disqualification case against him.
“Sa akin naman hindi naman kami diktador. Bakit didiktahan namin iyong mga petitioners na i-withdraw iyon? (To me, we’re not dictators. Why would i dictate to the petitioners to withdraw it?) But if Mr. Marcos thinks that there is no ground for the petition to prosper, wala naman siyang dapat ikatakot (he has nothing to fear),” she told the Rotary Club of Makati online forum late Tuesday.
Marcos’ lawyer Vic Rodriguez earlier said “yellow wannabe political assassins” are behind the filing of the disqualification petition.
Lawyer Howard Calleja, a convenor of the 1Sambayan Coalition which is endorsing Robredo’s presidential bid, is a petitioner in the disqualification case.
Calleja, who was one the panelists in the forum, said he and Robredo never spoke about the petition after the Vice President asked him to shed light on the allegation.
In a press conference in Batangas City yesterday, Robredo said she did not expect the filing of the disqualification case against Marcos.
In contrast, she said she was not surprised that Duterte-Carpio will run for a higher office because such political movements “is always part of our expectations.”
Her running mate Sen. Francis Pangilinan, said in Filipino: We have seen this in 2016, the substitutions. So it’s no longer a surprise to me.”
Pangilinan was referring to then Davao City Mayor Duterte who ran for president as a substitute candidate under the PDP-Laban.
SUBSTITUTION
Duterte-Carpio may have to leave her own political party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP), if she ultimately decides to run for president as a substitute candidate, Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez said.
“Someone from the same political party can submit their COC as a substitute for the original filer,” Jimenez said in a virtual press briefing, adding: “(Duterte-Carpio may) not (file) as HNP because that would not be the political party of the person, whoever that is.”
He also said HNP which the mayor founded in 2018 is a regional political party which has no national candidates.
“This means they are unable to file national candidates. If you are HNP and you are running for a national position, you would be running as an independent,” he said.
Asked if an adopted candidate may be fielded as a substitute bet by a political party, he said, “As long as he/she is a member of the political party, which means she holds a CONA (certificate of nomination and acceptance) from that political party, then yes.”
Jimenez also announced that the Comelec is opening its offices on Saturday to accommodate those who will be filing as substitute candidates.
“We know as a matter of history that Filipinos love last days. We are concerned that they may flock the offices to withdraw since personal appearance is a requirement,” said Jimenez.
He, however, noted that filing for substitution does not require personal appearance of the aspirant.
So far, Jimenez said there have been three COCs withdrawn for the national position. They are Noli de Castro (senator, Aksyon), Nur-Ana Sahidulla (senator, KPP), and Raquel Castillo (vice president, PLM).
Jimenez also said individuals who filed COCs will not be eligible for substitution if their COCs are canceled or denied due course.
Under the law, substitution is allowed in cases of death, withdrawal, or disqualification of an official candidate of a political party.
Jimenez issued the statement amid the disqualification petitions filed against Marcos Jr., which have been raffled to the Comelec Second Division. Its members are Commissioners Socorro Inting and Antonio Kho Jr.
President Duterte on Tuesday night said the Comelec should allow all candidates to campaign in person as not everyone could afford expensive televisions advertisements.
He said Comelec may opt to limit the number of attendees per event to ensure compliance with health protocols.
“I’d like to remind the Comelec that you must give the candidates really the space and whatever modalities there, because there can never be an election without a campaign and other people cannot also afford – some candidates cannot afford the expense of the TV exposures,” he said.
The campaign period for candidates for president, vice president, senators, and party-list groups will be from February 8 to May 7, 2022 while the campaign period for local candidates will be from March 25 to May 7, 2022.
The Comelec said it will release a list of guidelines to ensure that political rallies will not become super-spreader events. — With Jocelyn Montemayor and Gerard Naval
