Mocha Uson to seek elective post in 2019 as independent

Resigned Assistant Communication Secretary Mocha Uson vows to go after her detractors and threatens to “bring the fight’’ to Congress. —LYN RILLON

Updated @  12:31 a.m., Oct. 11, 2018

Social media, which helped make former singer-dancer Margaux “Mocha” Uson a household name, just might help propel her to an elective post in 2019, the resigned Presidential Communications official said on Wednesday.

According to Uson, she would only rely on herself and her supporters when she mounts her “independent” campaign for the midterm elections next year.

“There [are] really no funds. I would just rely on social media,” said Uson, adding that her decision to run independently would also prove to her critics that her claimed 5.7 million followers on Facebook were real and not just trolls and bots.

The controversial blogger who campaigned aggressively for President Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 national election, said she might also get a boost from the support “promised” by Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte’s regional political party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago.

Uson’s decision to run outside the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan came months after party president Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III described as “self-explanatory” the reason she was left out of the administration ticket.

Pimentel had criticized Uson for being part of the lewd “pepederalismo” video supposedly meant to promote the administration’s plan to shift to a federal government.

While she has remained coy on whether she would run for the Senate or the House of Representatives, Uson said she would campaign on a platform of protecting the rights of overseas Filipino workers. /pdi