DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/07 August) – Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo Duterte said he is willing to join other political parties other than the National Unity Party that took him in recently as its adopted member.
“To all other political groups out there, I am still up for adoption,” the President’s son said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Duterte, a first-term lawmaker and House Deputy Speaker for Political Affairs, said many of his colleagues in the House wanted to take him in as an adopted member of their respective political groups.
He added he is more than willing to accept their invitations if joining them would translate to serving the people.
“If being adopted by most, if not all, political parties is to be of service to the people, then I am more than willing to join all of you,” he said.
Duterte resigned as vice mayor of Davao City in December 2017, months after he and brother-in-law Manases Carpio were implicated in a drug smuggling controversy as members of the so-called Davao Group.
The group was tagged as behind the P6.4-billion shabu shipment from China that arrived via the Manila International Container in Tondo, Manila in May of the same year.
Duterte said his main task as deputy speaker “is to unify all members of Congress” to achieve a common goal of improving the lives of the people, telling House members that there is strength in unity.
“Let us show the Filipino people that we can all be united towards one common goal. This would be a first in Philippine politics, and it happened under the Duterte administration,” he said. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)