Former Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro on Monday said Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio would make a good President and was willing to be her running mate should she decide to run in the 2022 elections.
“My impression of Mayor Sara talking about issues was that she will make a very good president of this country. She would have the ability to unite a lot of people, she has an independent mind, she has managerial skills running a very complex city like Davao,” Teodoro said in an interview with ANC’s Headstart.
Teodoro made the statement days after he was criticized by netizens when he got vaccinated in Davao City, despite being a resident of Quezon City and Tarlac.
Teodoro said his vaccination in Davao City was not intentional. He explained: “There was an opportunity to show that I trust the local health authorities and it was my way of showing all local government units, all health workers that I will trust them. I could have signed up with private companies for their vaccines.”
Teodoro’s camp said they visited Davao to supposedly discuss with the mayor – President Rodrigo Duterte’s eldest daughter — about their possible team up in the 2022 national elections.
In related developments, Senate President Vicente Sotto III will run for vice president if Senator Panfilo Lacson will throw his hat into the race for the presidency.
In a message to reporters, Sotto claimed some groups had approached Lacson and him for their plans in next year’s general elections.
“We are seriously contemplating on it… There are some groups and some sectors that have approached me and Sen. Lacson. If Sen. Lacson decides to run for president, I will definitely be his running mate,” Sotto said.
“I am not in the habit of saying that I will not run and then all of a sudden I will file my certificate of candidacy. Let the other politicians do that. Not in our party,” he added.
Meanwhile, Malacañang doubted the claim of critics that voters would reject President Duterte’s candidates in 2022, including Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was responding to former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s statement that the President’s daughter should indeed seek the highest elected post in the 2022 polls as it would give the Filipino public a chance to reject Duterte and his family members.
Roque also dismissed the statement of 1-Sambayan convenor Howard Calleja that the PDP-Laban’s move of nominating the President as its vice presidential bet for the 2022 polls was a mockery of the 1987 Constitution and that the voters will see through it.
In the May 2010 elections, Teodoro ran for president under Lakas-CMD-Kampi coalition party with actor Edu Manzano as his running mate.
But Liberal Party standard bearer Benigno Aquino III – Gibo’s cousin on the Cojuangco side – won, as Teodoro placed fourth behind former President Joseph Estrada and Senator Manuel Villar.
Sara’s meeting with Teodoro came days after she had lunch with former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and his sister, Senator Imee Marcos.
Sara Duterte has reiterated there is no chance she’ll run for the presidency next year as her father said the presidency “was no job for a woman.”
Recent surveys suggested that the 42-year-old mayor of Davao would beat potential presidential candidates such as boxing champion and incumbent Senator Manny Pacquiao, Bongbong Marcos, and incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo.
When he filed his certificate of candidacy for president in the 2010 elections, Teodoro said he was not threatened by the so-called “kiss of death” from the administration party (Lakas-CMD-Kampi) at the time.
“No (I’m not afraid), I feel that I have proven to the Filipino people what I’m made of, and what our platforms stand for… and the people should discern on that basis,” said Teodoro after filing his COC with the Commission on Elections on Dec. 9, 2009.
Teodoro also said the decision of then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to run for a House seat would also not affect their campaign, saying Mrs. Arroyo’s choice “is hers alone and that it has nothing to do with their own 2010 political plans.”
The Lakas-CMD-Kampi party senatorial line up then included Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., Sen. Lito Lapid, broadcaster Rey Langit, League of Municipalities of the Philippines president Ramon Juico, former Justice Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Senator Mirriam Defensor-Santiago as a guest candidate, and lawyer Raul Lambino.
Sotto has said his party mates at the National People’s Coalition were waiting for his decision regarding his plans for the elections.
He said he could announce his decision after President Rodrigo Duterte delivers his last State of the Nation Address next month.
Results of the Pulse Asia survey released in December 2020 showed that Sotto ranked third among preferred vice presidential candidates in the 2022 polls. He was behind Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.
Citing Pulse Asia’s September 2020 survey results, he said only less than 5 percent disapproved of Duterte’s performance as president.
Roque also maintained that Duterte’s possible bid for the country’s second-highest post is allowed under the 1987 Constitution.
One of the framers of the Constitution, former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Christian Monsod, earlier said efforts by the ruling PDP-Laban to convince Duterte to run for vice president was clearly an “ingenious and insidious move to circumvent the Constitutional provision on reelection.”
The 1987 Constitution states that the President shall be in office for a term of six years and “shall not be eligible for any reelection.”
“There is absolutely no ban for a president to run for vice president. If you can show me a provision which bars the president to run for the position of vice president, then, of course, the president will honor that prohibition. But as it is, there is no literal provision in the Constitution that states that principle,” Roque said.