DAVAO CITY – This city’s mayor, Sara Duterte-Carpio, ended speculation on a likely run for a senatorial post when she filed her candidacy for mayor here. It would be a reelection bid for a second term.
The Presidential daughter filed her candidacy at 4:00 pm last Monday, an hour before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office would close on a normal day.
She was later seen with supporters and reporters acceding to interviews and photo opportunities.
Duterte-Carpio disclosed that she entertained the idea of having her younger brother, Sebastian, as her running mate following insinuations from supporters that Sebastian, or Basti as he is called, was thinking of entering politics.
He backed down when the mayor asked him to decide last week, Duterte said.
Duterte-Carpio told reporters after filing her certificate of candidacy that she was already considering her brother as one of two choices for her vice mayor tandem after they talked.
However, Sebastian said over the weekend that he would take a shot at the vice mayoral post, but this time, the mayor told him to consult their father first. She said President Duterte was supposed to be in the city on Monday.
Duterte did not say who her second choice was.
The mayor said she has been clear on her position to seek reelection, even as she has figured consistently on the top five choices for a senatorial slot in surveys done since last last year.
She said she already turned down offers to run for senator, although speculations still ran high because she was a leading figure in the formation of a regional political party, the Hugpong ng Pagbabago. The other governors of the Davao Region, except for Davao del Sur, were co-conveners of the party.
She also expressed her reelection bid during her state of the city address on September 28 to allow her to complete all her plans for the city that include several infrastructure to protect the environment in the middle of the construction frenzy, modernize mass transport and traffic, enhance agriculture and make the city the chocolate capital of the country.
Her local party, Hugpong sa Tawong Lungsod, announced that her running mates for Congress are Paolo Z. Duterte for District 1, Vincent J. Garcia for District 2, and Isidro Ungab for District 3.
The party was formed during the mayoral term of her father, and is allied with the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).
Meanwhile, the mayor’s other brother, Paolo, filed on Friday his candidacy for a congressional seat in the first district, eight months after he quit his post as vice mayor. His resignation came weeks after he was summoned to appear in a Senate investigation over his alleged “shady” deals with local Bureau of Customs operations.
Although Paolo said during his resignation on December 25 that he was giving up his port to “protect my honor and that of my children,” insiders from the Duterte camp said it was intended to simmer down attempts of the President’s critics to bring him down from Malacanang by centering on his son, Paolo, on issues that included the son’s alleged illegal drug use in the past.
Paolo said he decided to resign to put to rest the controversies hounding him, like the grilling in the Senate over his alleged role in the smuggling of a P64-billion shabu shipment at the Bureau of Customs and his quarrel with his daughter apparently over the latter’s posting of her pre-debut photographs inside Malacañang.