Sara Duterte drops plan to run for Davao City congresswoman

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (UPDATED) – President Rodrigo Duterte’s eldest daughter said Friday, January 26, she has no plans of seeking a seat in the House of Representatives after her term as Davao City mayor ends.

It was a turnaround from her pronouncement in 2017.

“I don’t have plans to run as congressman,” Sara Duterte-Carpio said, addressing the audience Friday evening at a Davao City Chamber of Commerce event.

Duterte said she instead wants to preside over the completion of government projects in the city.

Among these projects, Duterte mentioned Davao City’s farm-to-market road and the solid waste management complex.

Friday’s announcement reversed her previous plan running in the first legislative district of Davao City in 2019.

However, the mayor told the audience that “everything is still fluid,” and that her future plans lie on voters’ clamor. 

At a gathering organized by the Tapang at Malasakit Alliance for the Philippines in October 2017, Duterte-Carpio said she was eyeing a congressional post, and that national posts, including a Senate seat, do not interest here.

Earlier this January, however, she said she might change her mind if she gets annoyed with her father’s critics.

The presidential daughter ranked 9th among preferred senatorial candidates in a Social Weather Stations survey in December 2017.

A lawyer by profession, Duterte-Carpio joined local politics in 2010 as her father’s vice mayor. – Rappler.com