Who is telling the Truth?

While the period for filing Certificates of Candidacy is from October 1 to 8, 2021, the deadline for substitution of candidates by political parties will be on November 16, 2021.

For the May 2016 elections, the deadline for filing was on October 16, 2015 and the deadline for substitution was on December 10, 2015.

Then Mayor Rodrigo ‘Digong’ Roa Duterte did not file in October despite the clamor of his supporters.

Instead, the PDP Laban nominated former Barangay Captain Martin Diño as its presidential candidate. However, PDP- Laban and Diño made a mistake in their certificate of candidacy. They wrote down the position as mayor for the City of Pasay.

However, the COMELEC accepted the wrong filing of Diño and eventually accepted the substitution by Duterte.

And so, we have had a Duterte presidency for five years and four months. Imagine, if the COMELEC had done its duty, the Philippines would have been saved from all the mismanagement and abuse by this administration.

The ‘hele hele’ precedent of Duterte in the run up to the May 2016 elections makes people suspect that either or both Sara and Bong Go are following in PDU30’s footsteps.

Many people believe that father and daughter are playing a ‘distancing’ game so that Sara will not have to answer during the campaign for the mistakes of PDU30.

Some people even believe that father and daughter will eventually run together.

Some people suspect that Bong Go and PDU30 will run together and that if they both win, Go will resign and give way to Duterte. That way PDU30 can bypass the Constitutional ban against a President running for re – election.

Following is my two cents worth on the matter.

The Duterte family is dysfunctional. There are two first families. Chronologically, the first is that of Elizabeth Zimmerman (1975 – 2000, children - Paolo, Sara and Sebastian) and the second is that of Honeylet Avancena (child - Veronica).

The usual situation when there are two or more families, the man is closer to the last family and has many negative issues with the earlier families.

Duterte was appointed Davao City OIC Vice- Mayor by then President Corazon ‘Cory’ Cojuangco Aquino in 1986.

In January 1988, he challenged the first OIC Mayor, Atty. Zafiro ‘Zaf’ Respicio for the position of Mayor and won. He served three terms (1988 – 1992, 1992 – 1995 and 1995 – 1998). In 1998, Bong Go became his Executive assistant and personal aide.

Since the 1987 Constitution, limited local officials to serving only three consecutive three year terms, Duterte ran for Congress in 1998.

Former Vice-Mayor Benjamin C. de Guzman became the Mayor for one term. From 2001 to 2010, Duterte served three additional consecutive terms as Mayor.

Then, from 2010 – 2013, Duterte was elected Vice Mayor, while his daughter Sara, who had served as Vice Mayor from 2007 – 2010 became the Mayor.

While Duterte trusted his three children, Sara, Paolo and Sebastian to be Vice Mayors of Davao City, it was only Sara that he trusted enough to let her become the Mayor.

However, he does not trust her enough to run for President and resign if needed so that he can succeed her.

The only person that he could fully trust was Bong Go. They planned the Go – Duterte tandem and hijacked the PDP Laban to serve their purposes.

However, the COA reports and the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigation intervened and gave Bong Go cold feet.

So, Duterte is now in the same situation as GMA was in the 2010 elections with Gilbert ‘Gibo’ Cojuangco Teodoro as the administration’s presidential candidate.

At that time, some people suspected that GMA’s real candidate was Senator Manny Villar who was leading the surveys before Cory died on Saturday, August 1, 2009.

Today, some people are suspecting that the Lacson – Sotto tandem is the real administration slate.

They positioned their slate in the middle and deny that they are opposition. However, my belief is that if Duterte cannot trust his own daughter, how can he trust Lacson and Sotto?

Therefore, it boils down to Duterte having to convince Bong Go to run as his running mate. We will see what happens either in October or up to November 16.

Meanwhile, with the announcement that Sara will not run, the motivation for Senator Manny Pacquiao has increased because there is one less candidate from Mindanao.

If Bong Go refuses to run, Manny will be able to get a lot of Mindanao votes.

Considering that the most probable opposition candidate, Vice President Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Gerona Robredo, was relatively low in the past surveys, it will take a lot of effort for her to get in front of the race.