Lipa City, Batangas”•Heeding her mother’s admonition to “be kind,” Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte said Sunday she would stop her war of words with the political opposition.
“The Inday Sara show has packed up,” she said on the sidelines of a campaign stop for her Hugpong ng Pagbabago in Lipa City. “No more, so sad.”
The mayor, the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte and Elizabeth Zimmerman, said her mother called her from Davao Sunday morning and told her to stop picking fights with the opposition, and reminded her to be kind before anything else.
“She sort of scolded me,” Duterte said in Filipino. “She said everybody knows you are the daughter of Rodrigo Duterte, but you are also my daughter.”
When the mayor said she was only responding to an attack, her mother said, “You have to be kind, first of all.”
if this meant she would stop answering the tirades from the opposition led by Vice President Leni Robredo and the senatorial bets under Otso Diretso, Duterte said yes, then added: “Let’s see how long I will last.”
Duterte has been on a word war with Robredo and members of the opposition.
Early Sunday morning, she issued a statement chiding Robredo for her hiding behind the “Robredo camp” when responding to attacks.
“It says a lot about your fake courage,” the mayor said.
She added that Robredo was a “fake vice president,” because her election victory is still under protest.
The Davao City mayor has also been at odds with Robredo regarding her comments on honesty being a requirement for those running for office.
Duterte said the Constitution does not call for “honesty” as a requirement for political candidates.
Earlier, Duterte said she had no problem with a debate against the Otso Diretso senatorial hopefuls, but she said she does not want to debate with “disorganized and depressed” candidates who can’t organize such an event.
She recalled that the opposition group even asked her to draft the rules for the debate.
“So I told them, I am not the secretary of that black hole,” Duterte said.
At a campaign stop in Calamba City, former senators Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada, both running for the Senate, joked that the person who put them behind bars”•former Justice secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima”•was her self still detained.
They also told the crowd they were innocent of the charges that they received huge kickbacks from the pork barrel scam.
The HNP stage also served as a venue for the reconciliation between political rivals E.R. Ejercito and incumbent Laguna Gov. Ramil Hernandez.
Estrada, a first cousin of Ejercito, called on him and Hernandez to settle their differences for the sake of their constituents. To cheers from the crowd, they shook hands.
READ: Inday Sara hits out at Leni over 'honesty'