Sara defends ‘honesty is not an issue’ comment by calling opposition bets liars

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte said Thursday that she is "helping" opposition bets when she said that honesty should not be an issue in the coming elections, saying that they are liars and that they are at the tail end of pre-election surveys as a result.

Duterte issued the statement a day after candidates from the opposition ranks criticized her for her comments that "honesty is not the issue" in the May polls and that everybody lies.

“I'm helping the ‘Black Hole’ candidates dig themselves out of their own hole when I say honesty should not be an issue. They use inaccurate, misleading statements and lies when they attack other candidates or President Duterte, and they know they are stretching the truth and yet they deny that they are lying,” said Duterte, the campaign manager of the administration slate Hugpong ng Pagbabago and President Rodrigo Duterte's daughter.

“That is the reason why they should not attack other candidates about honesty because they are themselves liars. This is the truth. And this shows in their dismal performance in the race, people know they are not truthful,” she added.

Duterte has accused Magdalo party-list representative Gary Alejano of lying by claiming that the government paid for T-shirts featuring Hugpong bet and former Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go, which were distributed during a Department of Interior and Local Government-sanctioned event for barangay officials a week ago.

She said that Alejano has no proof that government shelled out money for the shirts.

Duterte has also defended Hugpong Senate bet and Ilocos Norte governor Imee Marcos over her claims of having graduated from the University of the Philippines and Princeton, saying that the Constitution does not require Senate candidates to have a college degree.

Of the eight opposition candidates, only one of them made it to top 12 or the winners' circle in the SWS survey released three weeks ago: former senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II. Re-electionist Senator Bam Aquino, on the other hand, ranked 13th.

Meanwhile, eight of those in the top 12 are from Hugpong slate: Senator Cynthia Villar, Taguig representative and former senator Pia Cayetano, Senator Sonny Angara, Senator Koko Pimentel, former Special Assistant to the President Bong Go, former senator Jinggoy Estrada, Marcos, and former senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. — BM, GMA News