DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday again filed his Certificate of Candidacy for president—and it came a day after the Commission on Elections dismissed the petition to declare PDP-Laban standard bearer Martin Diño as a nuisance candidate.
Duterte said he decided to come to the Comelec to inquire if there were any problems with the documents submitted by his legal counsel last month.
“Marami issue na lumalabas kaya naman siguro, once and for all, pumunta na ako dito sa Comelec,” Duterte told reporters.
“Tanungin ko lang kung okay lang ba yung papeles ko. Pag hindi, sabi ko i-DQ [disqualify] na lang n’yo ako kung hindi sang-ayon sa procedure.”
Duterte made his statement even as PDP-Laban president and Senator Aquilino Pimentel III on Tuesday called on the public to continue monitoring Duterte who, he said, would later be called “Santo Rodrigo.”
“Continue to monitor the pronouncements of Mayor Duterte beginning today and compare it with his past pronouncements and you judge whether he is a changed man and whether he has reached the level of a saint,” Pimentel said.
Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles, a known Duterte supporter, said at least 50 lawmakers had sent feelers supporting Duterte’s presidential bid in 2016.
He said the majority of those lawmakers were from Mindanao.
“I can safely say that more or less 50 lawmakers have expressed willingness to support the presidential bid of Mayor Duterte and 40 percent of this number came from Mindanao,” Nograles, son of former speaker Prospero Nograles Jr., told reporters.
“Right now I am not at liberty to disclose their names,” said Nograles.
Duterte, when asked if he needed to file his CoC again or if there were any defects from the documents submitted by his legal counsel on Nov. 27, Duterte said the Law Department saw no problem with it.
His lawyer Vitaliano Aguirre said his visit was just to “reaffirm” Duterte’s bid for presidency.
He said they actually prepared a new COC in case they needed to file it again during their visit on Tuesday, but the Law Department said there was no longer any need for them to submit a new one.
“There’s no defect and there’s no need for personal filing,” Aguirre said.
“For two days and two nights we had been debating whether there was a need for a personal filing of the CoC. So to prevent any technicality, I recommended that Mayor Duterte come here and personally file.”
Duterte’s visit came a day after the Comelec’s Second Division dismissed the petition to declare Martin Diño, PDP-Laban’s former standard bearer, as a nuisance candidate.