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More than six months before the nominations for the 2022 elections, discord broke out in the ranks of the ruling Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan Party (PDP-Laban) over an alleged “petition” urging President Rodrigo Duterte to run. for vice president. presumably with Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, who was handed over to reporters on Thursday.
A copy of the resolution showed that it was not numbered and had about 20 signatures in its margins, but it did not specify who the signatures belonged to.
While the resolution urged the president to run for vice president in 2022, it did not mention his running mate.
But Mr. Duterte himself shed some light on the matter.
“As we disembarked from the plane, Senator Bong Go said to me ‘Sir, I have a favor to ask.’ I asked him what and he said: ‘Somehow it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and it is still far away, but I want you to tell it,’ “the president said in his speech in the port of Dumaguete on Thursday.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” Duterte said. “He wants me to tell him that he wants to be president.”
After the event, Go issued a statement that said, “The president was just kidding. Please don’t include me in the policy talks in 2022, ”but said he would likely change his mind if Mr. Duterte decides to run for vice president.
But Senator Manny Pacquiao, PDP-Laban interim president, criticized the party’s vice president, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, for politicking despite urgent national concerns.
“That was not sanctioned. That was not authorized, ”said Pacquiao, who is also believed to be considering a 2022 race for the nation’s top job.
“Don’t poison the minds of some of our party members,” Pacquiao scolded Cusi, who is associated with Go, for politicking amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst economic recession in decades.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, executive vice president of PDP-Laban, agreed that the time was not right to discuss possible partners for the 2022 elections.
But Rep. Eric Martinez argued that it was just a “draft” and that Pimentel knew it.
“Senator Koko was informed,” Martinez said, although Pimentel said he did not remember.
Cusi, for his part, insisted that the resolution, drawn up during a March 8 meeting in Manila, was the result of a “consultative and participatory discussion.”
Cusi explained that the question of who will be the party’s standard-bearer in the upcoming elections was raised during the meeting and the participants decided instead to draft a resolution urging Duterte to run for vice president in 2022.
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