ACTIVELY and intensely criss-crossing the country and enthusiastically raising the hands of senatorial hopefuls from President Duterte’s PDP-Laban and her own pro-administration coalition of Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP), I could only describe presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio as a master campaigner leading to the May 2019 elections.
During her campaign caravan sorties she has also been lifting the hands of local candidates whom she sees being allies of the President, but whose explicit message she wants understood is that they should also campaign for and endorse her senatorial bets in a quid pro quo manner of speaking.
Sara’s ubiquitous presence in rallies leading to the May elections only shows the overwhelming trust and confidence the President has on her daughter’s ability in being able to convey to the public the importance of winning the election for her father who has still three remaining years in his presidency.
True enough, the fanatical crowd that Sara is able to gather in front of the stage that she and his favored candidates are standing on can be compared to the same number had it been the President himself campaigning.
This could only mean, therefore, that whatever vast support and/or adulation President Duterte has been getting from the people that ultimately catapulted him to the presidency, presidential daughter Sara is now enjoying it.
What is intriguing here is that the President has been announcing already to all and sundry that Sara is now calling the shots on the political decisions of the first family. So what does this mean?
It could only be surmised now, without any doubt, that the President is anointing Sara, and nobody else, to succeed him when his term of office expires. Not only will he be free of lawsuits then, but he can rest assured that Sara will pursue and accomplish whatever programs and plans he has started for the country. This is what matters most to him.
In effect what this means to Sara as a master campaigner of the PDP-Laban, HNP and other pro-administration coalition party candidates for national and local positions all over the country is that each rally is also an opportune time for her to introduce herself as a presidential candidate in 2022.
Surely, there is nothing wrong with that, but like many Filipinos who have supported President Duterte, I just hope that Sara will exercise better prudence in understanding what Filipinos truly wants from public servants.
The way people have considered the unconventional Dutertes as model for change in the country’s long traditional manner of governance, Sara should also make sure that the candidates she is supporting have the political will, intelligence, toughness, scrupulousness, and, most of all, the integrity of a name to uphold.