DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 13 June) – Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte again lashed at Senator Antonio Trillanes IV after the opposition lawmaker accused the mayor’s father, President Rodrigo Duterte, of planning to perpetuate themselves in power by having his daughter run as senator next year and as president in 2022.
Mayor Sara Duterte. File photo by RUBY THURSDAY MORE
“Leave me alone, Senator Trillanes. The last time a person irked me, I made sure to make it difficult for him to bring me down and Speaker Boy Nograles lost that election and was a billion pesos poorer,” the mayor posted on Facebook.
A report in GMA news online on June 12 quoted Trillanes as saying the President’s last option to stay in power is to have his daughter run for senator next year and then for president in 2022.
But the mayor told the senator: “Like Speaker Alvarez, my advice to you is not to think of me, speak of my name, not even a whisper of Inday Sara from your ugly lips. Leave me in peace in Davao City or else you and your friends will spend more than a billion in the 2022 Presidential elections just to make me insignificant.”
“President Duterte imagines you will be shot, on the other hand, I will make sure you are alive and in pain. I have been described as heartless by my mother, please do not anger me so that you may remain relevant for the future generation. And you should listen to my mother,” she warned.
She added that if Trillanes wouldn’t bother her again, her slot will be available to a “yellow” senator for the 2019 elections.
“Yellow” refers to the allies or supporters of the Liberal Party of former president Benigno S. Aquino III.
Mayor Sara, vice mayor of Davao from 2007 to 2010, won against former Speaker Nograles in the 2010 local elections with her father as vice mayor. A lawyer by profession, she returned to private practice when her father ran for mayor with her brother, Paolo, as vice mayor in 2013.
She made a comeback when Duterte ran for president in 2016.
During the launch of the regional political party Hugpong ng Pagbabago on February 23, the mayor said she has yet to decide on her plan for next year’s midterm elections.
The feisty mayor also clashed with House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez after the latter accused her of being in the opposition for leading the new political party, which is composed of governors and mayors of Davao Region. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
