DAVAO CITY – A key personality in the political movement meant to be the Presidential launching platfrom of this city’s Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said he was unfazed by the mayors’ latest pronouncement that she is no longer running for the presidency in 2022, as her father will run for vice president.
“Election time is still far. Anything can happen. I always believe in God’s will,” said Davao Occidental Gov. Claude Bautista, the vice-president of Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP) and a key personality in the Ituloy ang Pagbabago Movement (IPM).
What’s important, he said, “was that she has the desire to serve the people and everything will follow.”
“We believe in her leadership and I will always believe in her and I will always be her avid fan no matter what now and forever,” he added.
The HNP, the regional party affiliation of Duterte-Carpio, recently launched the IPM as a national movement to persuade her to run for the Presidential post next year.
Davao del Norte Gov. Anthony del Rosario, secretary general and spokesman of HNP, declined to comment on the mayor’s pronouncement, taking herself out of the Presidential race, after her father accepted the nomination to be the vice-presidential candidate of the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).
“Yes, I am not running for a national position as we both agreed only one of us will run for a national position in 2022,” she told reporters after she was asked to comment on the PDP-Laban nomination and her father’s acceptance to be the VP bet of the party,
She said it was a family agreement to have only one Duterte running in a national position. I think it turned out the way the Cusi Faction wanted it to go down. “It does not affect any of my plans but as we both agreed only one from the family will run for a national position.”
She said the party nomination in the PDP-Laban was how the Cusi faction wanted the convention to end. “From the last time PRRD [President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and I talked this was their Plan A. The Plan B was for SBG [Senator Bong Go] to run as VP.”
She said she and the HNP would not help the PDP-Laban in next year’s election.
She also said her cancelling herself from the Presidential race would not affect her relationship with her father. ”The same as it was before. Our politics do not interfere with our familial relationship. Iba ang trabaho, iba ang pamilya. Walang personalan [Work is different, family is different. Nothing personal about it].