FINDING himself in a situation where he had to choose only one side from among his supporters, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday his decision to skip the 2018 barangay (village) elections was “purely political.”a
“Everyone who was running is my friend. Almost all were my supporters during the last election,” he told reporters in Taguig City during the wake of the late former senator Edgardo Angara. “They would never believe that I voted for them or against them.”
“To erase all suspicions in the minds of people who really helped me along the way, I said I would simply not go,” he added in Filipino.
A reliable Palace official, however, said the President was supposed to leave his house in Davao with his daughter, Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio on election day, but experienced pain in his back from a spinal disorder.
Dutere, 73, the oldest Philippine president elected, earlier said he was late to the oathtaking of his appointees for the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission because his “spinal is acting up again.”