Rodrigo Duterte will not run for president

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (UPDATED) – Rodrigo Duterte says he will not run for president in the 2016 elections. Ending weeks of speculation, he announced this during a press conference in Davao City on Monday afternoon, October 12.

This is the second press conference he has called to confirm he is not seeking the presidency.
It comes weeks after telling supporters that he would do "soul-searching" in order to come up with a final decision on his 2016 plans.

 He also expressed his desire to bow out of public life – but only if his daughter Sara will agree to run for mayor of Davao City again.

Duterte

“The country does not need me. I find no need for it (the presidency),” Duterte said tersely inside a jampacked room at the Grand Men Seng Hotel.

 People came to the press conference – called only Monday morning – expecting him to actually announce his presidential bid.

“I am sorry to disappoint those who spent much and worked hard and long in support of me as I went around the country espousing the benefits and advantages of federalism,” the teary-eyed Davao City Mayor began reading his statement.

 Two prepared statements According to former North Cotabato Governor Manny Piñol, Duterte was given two prepared statements.

The one that he didn't read, still in Piñol's hand would have been an 11-page acceptance speech had he decided to run. (READ:Rodrigo Duterte: 'I am in a quandary').

 Duterte said instead of seeking a national position, he would end his political career as a public servant of his hometown.

"Time and again, those who believed in me and in the cause that I advocated and continue to advocate, advised me to go for the country’s presidency because that is the destiny that awaits me.

But I believe that my destiny is to end years and years of public life in the service of Davao City and every Dabawenyo.

" Duterte said the political plans of his daughter, Sara, would determine his as well.

If Sara decides not to run for Davao City mayor, he might run for the post again.

 "Thus, if Inday Sara agrees to run for Mayor, I will retire at the end of my term in 2016.

If she does not, the option to be Mayor again is on the table," he said.

 He said he will fade into the night and find “comfort in the thought that this is indeed a beautiful day to end a wild dream.

'You owe them nothing' Piñol believed that the thought of Sara not running for mayor of Davao City weighed on Duterte’s decision.

Sara made herself scarce from the public and did not answer calls and text messages from her father.

She was the one most strongly opposed to her Duterte's presidential bid.

 Piñol said Duterte was already set to run for president last week, as many of the president’s advisers said in private.

 But the absence of trusted friend and longtime adviser Leoncio Evasco, mayor of Maribojoc town in Bohol, was already an ominous sign Duterte was going to disappoint the local media.

Evasco left for Bohol Monday morning before the press conference.

Before reading his statement, Duterte urged the local press to listen intently to what he was going to say and added that the letter sent to him by Sara had bearing on his decision.

Sara, he said, did not want him to run for president.

“You owe them nothing,” he quoted the last paragraph of Sara's letter to him.

 The maverick city mayor said he had been very "local" and had repeatedly declined any appointive post in national government.

He had refused offers from at least 3 presidents in the past for him to run for senator.

“There was no ambition for me to aspire for the presidency….

I guess it is fate that wills our long journey together should end this way,” Duterte said in his statement that stunned many local members of the press who were expecting he will run as many were expecting him to announce.

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What the clamor for a Duterte run tells about us Filipinos

Permission to post: Veronica Uy, InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5 For the upcoming elections, I will not be overwhelmed by disappointment and frustration.

 Instead, this attitude:

No one and nothing’s perfect.

Not the candidates, not the Philippine political and electoral system, and least of all, not us, the citizenry, the voters.

So the 60-minute Happy Hour with Mayor Duterte was a feeble attempt to get to know the man, his motivations, and his flaws.

How do his failings as a person balance with his ambitions for the nation?

I asked him how many people he has killed because I wanted to satisfy a curiosity about people with that capability.

When I was a police reporter many years ago, I encountered two such men shortly after they’d done the deed.

Duterte

First was the triggerman in the killing of alleged big-time drug lord Don Pepe Oyson.

No other reporter was in the newsroom so I was told to go get details of the story.

The men were seated alongside the walls of the anteroom to the office of then NBI chief Alfredo Lim.

I was breathless because I had come from the Western Police District headquarters, where editors wrongfully instructed me to go interview the lawmen responsible for gunning down an allegedly escaping Oyson.

I politely asked which one shot and killed Oyson. I went to him and asked him how he did it and why.

He gave me his version of what happened -- in a voice that uncontrollably shook.

It felt like it was his initiation into the elite fraternity of men who kill. Second was during a hostage-taking in Dasmarinas Village in Makati.

It was past our 3 p.m. deadline, and we were all simply shooting the breeze in the Makati Press Office when somebody got a call about a developing crime story.

The photographers crammed into the jeep of a radio reporter.

I went with the rest of the other reporters in a cab.

We ran from a gate of the posh village.

The presence of police and village security vehicles pointed us to the crime site.

 I rushed to the passenger side of a white AUV parked outside the mansion of the man who was being held hostage.

One man was slumped dead in the front seat, blood oozing out of his head.

I did not know that the hostage-taking incident had concluded.

The sight of the body and smell of fresh blood shocked me.

I retreated to the vehicle behind the AUV. Three village security guards in blue overalls were in front of their vehicle, with one of them -- a hulkish man -- vomiting.

Turns out he was the one who shot dead one of the hostage-takers.

 That’s why I suppose it’s not easy to kill. One of the Ten Commandments, this prohibition against taking another’s life, is where I have always drawn the line, primarily because resurrection has not yet been successfully replicated in big enough numbers outside high-tech labs so as not to be considered a miracle.

At the height of the plunder accusations against former President GMA, I would tell rabidly anti-GMA friends,

“Stolen funds can be returned, unlike snuffed lives.” Although now I know: Stealing, especially obscenely huge amounts intended to feed, clothe, shelter, educate les miserables, does kill -- just as stupidity, indifference, and greed (definitely) kills.

 Duterte was not coy. His response felt like he was inside a confessional bragging. It was surreal. “I counted to three and that was it,” he said of the kidnappers that took a “Chinese girl” when she was released.

“Babarilin ko ang dalawang bayag niya(I will shoot both his testicles),” he said of the cigarette-smoking tourist in tobacco-free Davao City.

And unrelated to the question of whether or not he’s running for the presidency, Papatayin kita pag pumunta ka sa Davao (I will kill you if you go to Davao).”

Talking about the interview with a friend, we agreed that the bluster might be a case of myth-making.

And you can’t argue with Duterte about how the justice system is nowhere near being just.

A former prosecutor, he enumerated the pillars of the Philippine judicial system and their failures. Of the rehabilitation pillar:

“What can they do? Jail me? In jail, one can have so many women, have or trade in drugs, get a Patek Philippe watch.

” For me, this is the story: A lot of Filipinos like the swagger.

His rage, directed mainly at the continuing lording over of illegal drug traffickers, resonated with many.

Our amateur social psychological conclusion: People cheer Duterte on because he projects the “Justice League” persona.

He is katarungan personified. People bear the weight of social injustice every day.

He is a superhero.

They know that might and money are the only law.

Not right.

 And who has not felt homicidal over the homeless babies on the streets being used as pity capital in exchange for our guilt-filled coins?

The corruption that exacerbate this inhumanity of poverty?

The floods?

The traffic?

Every putang ina, babarilin ko ang bayag or papatayin kita is meant more than to shock, but to echo everyman’s and everywoman’s indignation and to shake off some of their frustration.

They agree that Duterte’s motivation -- to make his city safe for his constituents -- justifies his means.

 Unlike FPJ, Duterte has captured the imagination of Mindanaoans (and quite a number of people elsewhere) with real-life toughness of talk and action.

He has accepted that politics and governance can be so dirty he developed a capacity for the killing that it sometimes requires.

People’s reaction to him is similar to former policemen Alfredo Lim and Panfilo Lacson.

 While Duterte’s strongman’s governance style leaves me a little terrorized, four positive things in a Duterte presidency came out of the interview:

  1. He is from Mindanao -- and everything that stems from that fact. Duterte asserts that Mindanao is his home, and because it is home, he won’t let it continue being “the country’s battleground.
” Even as he recognizes that he is a migrant to the island, he is pro-Moro, and not only because a relative is married to one.
According to him, his going around the country promoting federalism -- in place of the Bangsamoro Basic Law in the likelihood that it doesn't pass Congress -- is what people interpreted as his pre-election campaign.

  2. He knows his history. The first part of the interview was mostly about history -- as viewed from Mindanao: how the island has always fought against colonizers and for self-determination.

He claims to understand the island’s and its unconquered peoples’ “idiosyncracies.”

  3. His concern for patrimony. He argues: China may have all the billions to buy parts of our land, but we cannot agree to sell them because where else would Filipinos go?

This is our land. He is also anti-mining.

  4. He gets things done. Tobacco is a big enemy. And Duterte took it on, and seems to be winning that war -- in his cowboy style.

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Supporters pledge P1Billion for Duterte, No Strings Attached

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—They are not expecting anything in return, not even publicity.

All they want is a crime-free, drug-free, corruption-free and rebellion-free Philippines.

“They” are a group of Filipino businessmen who believe Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s policies are good for business and have pledged P1 billion to bankroll his presidential candidacy, according to Duterte’s aides.

The businessmen, who call themselves the Anonymous Patriots for Peaceful and Progressive Philippines, or AP4, believe that “by helping Duterte win the presidency, they would be showing their patriotism,” said former North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol, a Duterte friend and supporter.

No strings attached

“There will be no strings attached. They will not even allow their names to be published,” said Piñol, quoting businessman Benigno Gopez, who speaks for the group.

Peter Laviña, Duterte’s spokesperson, told the Inquirer he could confirm Piñol’s claim.

“Yes, I can confirm. Many well-meaning Filipinos rich and not rich are willing to financially support Duterte,” Laviña said.

He said it had always been volunteerism that had fueled the campaign to convince Duterte to run for President.

“In fact, the federalism campaign [that Duterte has been running] the past year was largely funded by volunteerism,” Laviña said.

His own man

According to Piñol, what has drawn the businessmen to Duterte is his firm stand that no politician should become beholden to interest groups.

That’s why, he said, the businessmen are not asking for anything in return for the money they would be contributing to the Duterte campaign—should the mayor finally decide to run.

“Do we want a President who is not beholden to anybody but only to the Filipino people? AP4 believes we should do our part,” he quoted Gopez as saying.

According to Piñol, Gopez had told him that “many more are willing to contribute to Rody Duterte’s campaign kitty.”

These businessmen, he said, did not even have business transactions with any government agency.

Piñol said AP4 was also hopeful that the seed campaign fund would grow with the participation of patriotic Filipinos.

“While the estimated cost of running a presidential campaign is pegged at between P6 billion to P8 billion, Duterte’s campaign is not expected to cost that much because most of his local political leaders are not dependent on the traditional party funding,” he said.

Election spenders

In August, Duterte disclosed having been called to a meeting by five big businessmen known to be election spenders, who said they wanted to bankroll his presidential campaign.

One of them, he said, owns a large television network, another a communications company, and still another owns and runs a stevedoring company. There were two others who own various big businesses.

But Duterte said he had turned down their offer because he was not running.

In subsequent interviews, he explained that he did not want to be obligated to any election contributor.

“I have been mayor of Davao City for many years now and no one can say I asked or received money from them during the campaign periods,” he said.

Not losing hope

Piñol and Laviña are among the avid Duterte supporters who continue to hope that the mayor will change his mind in the face of his repeated statements that he is definitely not running.

“It’s still several weeks away before the deadline for the filing of certificates of candidacy,” Piñol said.

Laviña said there were many others who continued to pledge financial donations and other assistance even after the mayor’s rejection of the calls for him to run.

Last week, Duterte urged his supporters not to go to the Luneta on Monday (today) where his supporters are holding a rally aimed at convincing him to run.

A similar rally was also staged at the Rizal Park in Davao City on Sunday, where about 500 people were seen to have already converged as of 4 p.m.

On Laviña’s Facebook page, he appeared to be in contact with organizers of the Luneta rally, posting updates and photos. People could be seen putting up tents for the rally.

Duterte has not issued any statement on the P1-billion campaign pledge and his supporters’ insistence about holding the rally.

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