DAVAO CITY—It looked like city mayor, Sara Duterte-Carpio, would be turning down supporters, and proving detractors wrong about her grabbing the opportunity of being a consistent favorite in surveys of presidential candidates.
Near midnight Wednesday, she posted a two-paragraph message written in Filipino, which would denote that the message was meant not for the largely Cebuano-speaking Davao City and the Visayas, but for supporters in the Tagalog-speaking Luzon Island.
“Masakit din para sa aking damdamin na sana magpaubaya sa mga kaibigan na hindi ko maibigay ang gusto ninyo. Gusto ko po sana tapusin muna ang huli kong termino sa mayor bago ako manungkulan sa ibang position,” she said in the language she seldom use, with unease if ever, in public speaking engagement.
“Madami sa inyo ang nasasaktan, sumama ang loob at nawalan ng pag-asa pero pwede pa rin tayo magtulungan para sa ating bayan, di kailangan ng position, di kailangan ng tayo ay Pangulo upang makatulong,” she said in a quote shared across several social-media platforms. It was dated October 6, at 22:51 hours, or 10:51 p.m.
Supporters from as far as Metro Manila and Luzon appealed anew for consideration, many of them, saying “we don’t like to return to the days of drugs and crime” and “please protect our children from the unruly heydays of crime in the streets.”
Sara Duterte-Carpio filed her candidacy for mayor on Saturday, for her third and final term on that position. She would be running alongside her younger brother, Sebastian, currently the vice mayor.
Insiders from the Duterte camp compared the father and daughter on their political management style, the father described as fiercely anti-illegal drugs and anti-criminality, and the daughter as still upholding this focus, but venturing into other fields such as tourism, the economy and social welfare.
The father was credited for turning this city from a former laboratory of urban partisan warfare of the New People’s Army into one of the country’s leading growth center in the next three decades.