Sara Duterte includes J.V. Ejercito, son of her friend Erap, in 2019 slate

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte carries her newly born son, Marko Digong Duterte Carpio as he is baptized in Davao City on Mar. 16, 2017. Former President Joseph Estrada (left), who is the child’s godfather, and the mayor’s husband, Manases Carpio, look on. (Photo courtesy of JEFREY TUPAS / Davao City Public Information Office)

DAVAO CITY — Former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, who had been convicted for plunder before he was granted presidential pardon, has been the “first favorite president” of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.

The mayor revealed this as she endorsed Estrada’s son, Sen. JV Ejercito, and eight other senatorial bets in her Hugpong ng Pagbabago slate for the 2019 midterm elections.

The mayor recalled her first meeting with Estrada when she was still a girl in the late 1990s, long before he became President.

She said Estrada had flown to Davao City that day to meet her father, then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, because Estrada was planning to run for vice president that year.

“He went to our house in Maa,” the mayor said.

“He visited RRD [Rodrigo Roa Duterte] because he planned to run for vice president. I was still a young girl at that time,” she said during the oathtaking of new members of her regional political party Hugpong ng Pagbabago here on Friday.

“I was standing on the stairway, and he said: ‘Come down here. Let’s take a picture.” I was still so young and I was afraid to go. He was very kind to me at that time.”

The mayor, who swore in 6,276 new members in Davao City, 600 of them walk-ins, had nothing but warm recollection of that first visit of Estrada.

She said many people were wondering later, why she picked Estrada to be godfather of her youngest child Stonefish. She said not many people knew her friendship with Estrada had dated back a very long time.

“Many did not know. We’ve known each other for a long, long time,” said Duterte, who was behind the move that ousted the former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez in the House of Representative in July, and installed in his place former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who succeeded Estrada as president.

Among the nine Hugpong bets that Duterte endorsed on Friday, the mayor first named presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, saying her father had convinced her to support Roque, despite Roque’s friendship with Alvarez, whose earlier quarrel with her had been blamed for his ouster.

“Just don’t quarrel with him because he might lose most of his hair,” the mayor quoted her father as telling her.

Following are the other people she named on her slate:

• Taguig Rep. Pia Cayetano, whom she described as as very supportive of her reproductive health programs
• Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos, whom she jokingly described as the one who masterminded the move to unseat Alvarez, not her
• Sen. Cynthia Villar, whose agriculture projects in Davao Oriental she wanted to replicate in Davao City
• Sen. Sonny Angara, who has always been supportive of the President
• Maguindanao Rep. Zajid Mangudadatu, whom she described admirably as takosa – takot sa asawa – because of his loyalty to his wife
• Special Assistant to the Presidential Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, who she described as loyal to his father.
• Bureau of Corrections chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa

“May I get your commitment that they don’t have to come back here to campaign because we will already support them,” Mayor Duterte asked the new HNP members. /atm