PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte did not show up to cast his vote for the first barangay (village) and Sangguniang Kabataan elections under his administration on Monday.
Supporters waited hours for the President to show in Precinct 899 at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School and even brought out the chair on which he sat when he cast his vote during the 2016 presidential elections, but Duterte was a no-show.
Jean Villavert, an English teacher at the school, said they preserved the chair Duterte used because of its historic significance.
“No one has used the chair after he voted last 2016,” she said. “We put it in a glass located on the second floor of the administrative building. We only brought it out for him, but unfortunately, he did not come.”
Alma Doromal, chairman of the Board of Election Tellers, closed the voting at 3 p.m.
“We cannot wait for him, unless he is within the vicinity,” she said. “Apparently, he is not around.”
It was the first time Duterte failed to cast his vote since becoming mayor of Davao City.
Special Assistant to the President Christopher Lawrence Go, who voted in Precinct 1658A at the Buhangin Central Elementary School in Davao City, could not say why Duterte did not cast his vote.
The President had earlier sought a postponement of the barangay elections, citing the influence of drug money on the polls.
The President’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, cast her vote in her precinct inside the Daniel R. Aguinaldo High School in Barangay Matina in Davao.
In Tarlac, former President Benigno Aquino III and his sisters Balsy and Pinky finished voting in about five minutes, an improvement, he said, over 2010 when he had to wait for four hours because of a defective vote counting machine.
Former President and Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, meanwhile, said he would seek a third term during the 2019 polls as he headed to the Padre Burgos Elementary School in Altura, Sta. Mesa to vote in the barangay elections.
He also said his sons Senator JV Ejercito and former senator Jinggoy Estrada would both run for senator next year.