Duterte on skipping barangay, SK polls: ‘Purely political’

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, May 15, reasoned that he did not cast his vote for the May 14 village and youth council elections as it was merely “purely political.”

“It’s purely political [ that’s why I chose not to vote] ,” the President said on the sidelines of his wake visit to former Senate President Juan Edgardo Angara early Tuesday at the Heritage Park in Taguig City.

Duterte’s remark came a day after Special Assistant to the President Christopher Go confirmed that the President did not vote in the twin polls.

The Chief Executive explained that he preferred to skip the voting to “erase all suspicions” of the people who helped him win the 2016 presidential race.

He thus said that the “better option” he had in mind was to avoid casting his ballots.

“All those who ran [for the village polls] are my friends. Almost all were my supporters during the last election. And they would never believe that I vote for them or I did not vote for them. So I think the better option would really be to just skip the voting because I do not want them to be suspicious,” Duterte said.

“They would say, ‘If he votes, there’s a reason.’ To erase all suspicions in the mind of people who really helped me along the way, I said I would not vote,” he added.

Also, Duterte said he could not go to his polling precinct at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School in Davao City because he was “busy monitoring [ the events] all over the Philippines in front of so many gadgets.”

To recall, Duterte was skeptical about the resumption of the village and youth council elections, as he feared that those who will assume the local posts are connected to illegal drug trade.

The President had repeatedly claimed that 40 percent of villages all throughout the country are contaminated with narcotics trade, prompting him to postpone the twin elections twice.

He, however, could no longer further delay the conduct of the village and youth council polls since Congress failed to submit a measure seeking its postponement anew. (Ruth Abbey Gita/ SunStar Philippines)