Will Duterte stay with PDP-Laban or leave? Roque can’t say

Malacañang could not say if President Rodrigo Duterte will stay with PDP-Laban or leave, amid the current divisions in the ruling party.

“We have discussed this with the President but I feel it’s premature to make any statement on this particular question,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Thursday.

“What the President said is that we will do this legally. So, let’s see what happens. If there is an intra-party dispute, then the Comelec will have jurisdiction to rule on it,” he added.

Likewise, Roque could not say which political party would the President affiliate himself with in the event he pursues a vice presidential bid in the 2022 polls.

“Well, anything is possible,” Roque said when asked if the President would run under PDP-Laban, which he chairs, or Hugpong ng Pagbabago, which is led by his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.

“In the first place, hindi pa naman po siguradong tatakbo ang Presidente.  He is seriously thinking about it,” Roque added.

(The President is still unsure if he is going to run in 2022.)

The President met with his PDP-Laban partymates on Tuesday night at the Palace, but PDP-Laban stalwart and Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, who has expressed support for the 2022 presidential bid of Senator Manny Pacquiao, was not present.

Members of the PDP-Laban who were present during the Palace meeting are pushing the President to run for vice president under PDP-Laban, as well as pick the party’s presidential bet for the 2022 elections.

Roque said the President recognized the leadership of PDP-Laban Vice Chair and Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi but did not dismiss Pimentel.

“I believe he was addressing persons whom he believed were the rightful leaders of PDP-Laban. But that is without prejudice to the role of Senator Koko Pimentel, because we know that his family founded PDP-Laban,” Roque added.

Pimentel serves as PDP-Laban’s Executive Vice President while Pacquiao is the party’s acting President. — BM, GMA News