There are 12 mayors in Negros Occidental who want Davao Mayor Sara Duterte Carpio to run for president in 2022, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Monday, August 23.
“I didn’t hear them say they committed, what I heard from them is ‘we want Sara to run because we want a Duterte to be the president, we want continuity,’” Panelo said.
Panelo, who was in Bacolod City, said he has been travelling around the country because he has a special task from the president to know the concerns of local governments and to act on them.
He is seriously studying the probability of running for senator in 2022 and has been endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte, Panelo also said.
An endorsement from the president can mean a lot considering his high trust rating, Panelo said.
The people’s desire for continuity of what the president started is why his daughter and Senator Bong Go are being pushed to run, he said.
Panelo said he launched the Sara for President Movement three and half years ago in Hong Kong and the call for a Duterte-Duterte tandem five months ago.
If the president decides to run as the vice president of his daughter “it will be game over, they will win by a landslide,” Panelo said.
However, Carpio has said if her father runs for vice president she won’t run for president, Panelo said. The president, on the other hand, does not want his daughter to run for president because he wants to spare her from the attacks that come with the job, he added.
Since they are hesitant to run in tandem, Panelo said he suggested that they instead run independent of each other and the people will still vote for them.
He said whether Senator Manny Pacquiao won or not, his Las Vegas fight would not have made a difference in his plan to run for president because the people want a Duterte.
In his meetings with the mayors of Panay and Negros among their requests were for farm to market roads, additional school buildings and ambulances, Panelo said.
Panelo did not say whom he will support for mayor of Bacolod in the 2022 polls.*