Sara: 2022 presidency was mine already, but..

As lawmakers blamed her mistimed” ambitions for the presidency as the cause of her problems, Vice President Sara Duterte on Saturday said she could have been the president today had she not prioritized other things.”

- By NEIL JAYSON SERVALLOS

“First of all, the presidency of 2022 was mine already. I won the surveys, all the people were solidly united for my (presidential) candidacy, but I gave it away because I had to do some other things other than being president of the Republic of the Philippines,” Duterte told reporters in a chance interview at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).

She was commenting on House Assistant Majority Leader Jay Khonghun’s remarks that she herself was responsible for the problems she is facing now.

During a press conference last week, Khonghun said the conflict between the two most powerful political families in the country was a result of Duterte’s ambitions to be president and her father former president Rodrigo Duterte’s insistence on putting her in the country’s highest office “this early.”

“All this chaos began when our Vice President aspired to be president too early, when her father aspired for her to be president immediately. Had there been no one who preemptively launched ambitions to be president, all would be quiet. We all know what caused everything happening now,” Khonghun added.

The Vice President scored lawmakers who were blaming her for the conflict, saying she was not the one who opened legislative inquiries to “politically persecute and harass” personnel of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

“So, don’t they dare gaslight me into saying I’m the reason for all this chaos. These all started from their terrorism, harassment and threats against OVP personnel,” she said.

Asked about President Marcos’ plea to lawmakers to delay impeachment proceedings against her as it was “not important,” Duterte said she would no longer be commenting on statements by the President for a while.

Since 2023, lawmakers have been scrutinizing the OVP’s use of confidential funds, which has since triggered the soured relations between the Duterte and Marcos families.