PDP-Laban ‘miting’ doubles as call to defend Dutertes
The final campaign rally of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) on Thursday turned into an appeal not only to vote for its candidates but also to support Vice President Sara Duterte and her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, who is being held in a detention center of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for murder as a crime against humanity.
About 2,000 people attended the Miting de Avance rally at Liwasang Bonifacio, according to the Manila police. The crowd remained till late evening despite the rain that came earlier, waiting for Vice President Duterte to speak to them on the last day for campaigning for Monday’s midterm elections.
Amid chants of “Duterte! Duterte!” the Vice President’s younger sister, Veronica “Kitty” Duterte, thanked the PDP-Laban senatorial candidates for their “loyalty not just to my father, but to the Filipino people.”
“Your principles cannot be bribed with money, power and influence. It will not be forgotten,” she said.
The 21-year-old was with her father on his return from Hong Kong on March 11 when the ex-president was arrested at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. She vehemently protested his arrest, shouting and cursing at police officials. He was flown to The Hague, the Netherlands, later that night.
In a message to her father, she said that she would be steadfast in support of him.
“Know that I remain unafraid, unbent and unswayed just like you,” Kitty said. “Your battle is my battle.”
Sara cites Imee’s probe
The Vice President, who will be facing an impeachment trial in the Senate in July, told the crowd that she would be voting for reelectionist Sen. Imee Marcos, President Marcos’ eldest sister.
“I know you won’t be pleased,” she told the crowd, referencing to her own bitter feud with the President. “She had the courage to open the investigation of the abduction by the government of a Filipino in our country to deliver him to foreigners.”
She cited the senator’s courage in leading the inquiry by the Senate committee on foreign affairs into the arrest and surrender of Duterte to the ICC. Her committee asked the Ombudsman to conduct its own investigation of alleged violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act by senior administration and police officials in Duterte’s handover to the international tribunal.
“We are now paying the price for choosing the wrong leader,” the Vice President said.
Longtime demand
Without citing Mr. Marcos by name, she said the nation’s leader had been lying about the P20 price of rice and refusing to take the “hair follicle” drug test, a long-running demand based on the Dutertes’ allegations that the President was addicted to cocaine.
The Vice President’s supporters want to elect the full 10-member senatorial slate of PDP-Laban to the Senate to prevent a two-thirds vote to convict her in the upcoming impeachment trial.
The former president’s eldest daughter said she also supported Las Piñas Rep. Camille Villar. Senator Marcos and Villar are nominally in the administration’s senatorial lineup.
Only 2 in poll ‘Magic 12’
In the latest surveys, however, only two allies of the former president, incumbent Senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Christopher “Bong” Go, are comfortably within the winning circle of senatorial aspirants among the so-called “DuterTen” slate.
Actor Philip Salvador and Sagip Rep. Rodante Marcoleta were among the Duterte-backed candidates who ranked 14th to 19th place overall in the latest Pulse Asia survey.
The other PDP-Laban candidates are singer Jimmy Bondoc, former Interior Undersecretary Jayvee Hinlo, lawyer Raul Lambino, jailed Kingdom of Jesus Christ founder Apollo Quiboloy, Davao-based doctor Richard Mata and former Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez.
During the rally, most of the PDP-Laban candidates spoke about Duterte’s arrest and the Vice President’s impeachment.
‘We need to protect her’
“VP Sara Duterte was given a 59-percent approval rate by the Filipino people but it doesn’t stop there, they trust the leadership of VP Inday Sara Duterte. We need to protect her, we need to defend her, which is why we have to bring the entire DuterTen to the Senate,” said Rodriguez.
For Marcoleta, survey numbers should not be the basis for the voters’ choices.
“Do not let yourselves be deceived,” Marcoleta said. “Think of our country, no more due process. Look at what they did, trying to remove the Vice President and won’t make efforts to bring back President Duterte.”
The Vice President said her family’s name had been “dragged through the mud.”
“The Dutertes are not the problem of the Philippines. Who will truly benefit if the Duterte family is finally erased from the face of the earth? It is not the Filipino and more so the victims of criminality, the jobless, the poor and the hungry,” she said.
She also spoke of a “systematic demolition job” against political opponents of the administration.
