President Rodrigo Duterte has revealed that Senator Imee Marcos has been courting his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, to form a possible tandem for next year’s national elections.
“Imee’s game is like this: She goes to Mayor Sara Duterte in Davao hoping that if the latter runs, she will be vice president,” Duterte said in his pre-recorded Talk to the People aired Tuesday morning.
The presidential daughter, however, quickly belied the statement that she has been in talks with the senator.
“Talks or meetings with Sen. Imee for VP never happened,” Duterte-Carpio said.
Marcos, for her part, gave a curt reply when asked by reporters for comment: “Is that so? I have been promoted?”
Marcos earlier said a ticket headlined by the Davao mayor in tandem with her brother, former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., will be “a marriage made in heaven.”
“I think the most obvious thing is if the Dutertes have the solid South, we are assumed to have the solid North, the Marcoses,” she said.
Duterte claimed that the Sara-Imee tandem will not prosper as his daughter is not interested in joining the presidential race.
“My daughter said she will not run,” the President said.
Duterte earlier said he is inclined to run for vice president after he was nominated by the ruling PDP-Laban party, with at least 41 governors supporting the move.
“It seems I might really run, Sal. I am getting more and more convinced,” the President said after hearing the ringing endorsements from Tarlac mayors reported by chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo last week.
Duterte said two more reports from Panelo on endorsements from local officials clamoring for him to run for vice president might seal the deal.
Duterte said whatever decision he will make will be for the interest of the Filipino people.
“The Filipino nation can be very sure that whatever statement that I will give, it will always be for the benefit and interest of the country. I have no personal interest there except to serve,” the President said.