DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 27 January) — Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has dispelled rumors that she will run for a national post in the 2019 midterm elections as she expressed her intention to seek reelection as the city’s chief executive to finish her administration’s high priority projects.
“I would like to, if you allow me, run for city mayor again because I need to finish my priorities,” Duterte announced before 300 attendees of the Annual Installation of Officers and Board of Trustees of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCCII) on Friday at the SMX Convention Center here.
She added she wants to settle everything before she steps down as mayor of the city, including her major projects such as the High Priority Bus System and farm-to-market roads.
The farm-to-market roads are needed to provide more access to farmers in the hinterlands and roads “usually open up areas to business and investment” that will boost the livelihood of the people while the new bus system is needed to address traffic congestion, she said.
The mayor said she fears these projects might not be on the priority list of whoever might replace her as mayor.
The mayor is reportedly being pushed by supporters to run for the Senate but she said she has no plans to run for a national position. “If the option is just run for national position, I’d like to return to my private practice as a lawyer I do not want to go anywhere… I want to work and live here in Davao City.”
Sought for clarification on her political plans next year, the mayor told reporters “everything is fluid” until the filing of certificate of candidacies (COCs) sometime October this year, whether she would run as a candidate for the city’s 1st District Representative or seek reelection as mayor.
If joining the lower house will be advantageous for the city, she would run for Representative but added she would more likely choose to remain as city mayor because “I want to live and work in Davao City.”
“Everything is fluid because there are many decisions about politics that are not left up to me personally especially we are considering different circumstances surrounding, of course, PRD (President Rodrigo Duterte) – his presidency,” she said.
Before she was elected mayor in 2016, Carpio served as vice mayor from 2007 to 2010, mayor from 2010 to 2013 with her father as her vice mayor. She went into private practice as lawyer when her father returned as mayor in 2013 until he was elected first Mindanawon president in 2016.
President Duterte actually filed his certificate of candidacy for mayor in October 2015 and withdrew it and was substituted by his daughter when he filed his candidacy for President as substitute to a candidate fielded by the PDP-Laban then. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
