While he is not backing Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, Senator Panfilo Lacson stressed that among the present crop of young leaders, she was the only potential national leader.
“I am not endorsing her. I’m just saying among young leaders, I think you can agree with me that we are looking at Sara,” Lacson told reporters during Thursday’s regular “Kapihan sa Senado.”
“Speaking of Mayor Sara Duterte, make no mistake, If the next leader of our country would emerge from the young, fresh and new faces in national politics, my top choice right now is Sara Duterte,” said Lacson.
Lacson described the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte as “strong-willed, stern, vibrant, progressive-minded, and had obviously good leadership qualities.’’
He stressed that the Davao mayor was his “top choice” not only because she was the daughter of a president, but due to her track record.
“Also her experience as a local government official in Davao, says it all,” further stated Lacson.
But the President said his daughter would not run for any national position.
Asked if the President should take action to discourage his daughter from ‘‘influencing’’ government matters, Lacson said he believed the President had talked to her about this.
“Because we know that the President knows that she can help in his governance,” said Lacson.
He noted that any sensible thinking individual especially “if you are a leader,” knew the meddling of a family member would not help.
Before heaping praises on the Davao mayor, the senator talked about her alleged role in the change of leadership in the House of Representatives.
Mayor Duterte reportedly called some congressmen to secure support for newly installed House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He slammed the interference of the relatives of presidents in affairs which he said they had no business in.
“Only because of what the Filipinos have experienced in the past administrations involving presidential relatives, we should reject any interference and influence peddling by somebody outside the official chain of the government bureaucracy, but who projects closeness to the President due to kinship,” Lacson said.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s an Imelda Marcos, or a Peping Cojuangco or a Mike Arroyo, or any presidential relative. It is not about them. It is about undue intrusion in some major state affairs in which they have no business interfering,” he said.
He noted their interference in the bureaucracy impeded the smooth and efficient delivery of services of the national government.
“You can just imagine if majority of the relatives of the President regardless of who is the President interferes (sic) if they are not in the official chain (of the) bureaucracy, our world will be chaotic,” he said.
“We have already experienced that, I no longer want to be repeating their names. We have experienced that they were never of help and instead, it was disadvantageous to the decision-making process of the President and the Cabinet (members).”
The young Duterte had been tagged as the mastermind the House leadership squabble which led to the ouster of Davao del Norte 1st District Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez as House Speaker.
However, the Davao mayor opted to remain mum about this allegation.
But she hosted a Thanksgiving lunch which was attended by Arroyo and other allies in the House.