Sen. Leila de Lima on Wednesday challenged the administration senatorial candidates to a debate with their opponents, saying they should stop hiding under President Rodrigo Duterte’s skirt.
“There is one sure way to prove or disprove Duterte’s boast — a live and televised debate between his favorites Bong Go and (Francis) Tolentino, (against) anyone among the Otso Diretso candidates,” said the senator.
“The only problem is, (the President’s) favored bets are content with hiding under Duterte’s skirt, too afraid to engage in any kind of debate with their opponents,” she said.
De Lima made the statement after the President mocked the opposition’s Otso Diretso slate and claimed that they could not beat his former political adviser Tolentino and former aide Go in the race for Senate seats in the May election.
Otso Diretso earlier challenged candidates of the Hugpong ng Pagbabago, which is led by the President’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, to a debate in Plaza Miranda during the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution anniversary in February.
None of the Hugpong candidates showed up.
De Lima surmised that the President’s candidates did not want to engage in a debate because they could not explain how they intended to fulfill the promises they made to the people.
2016 campaign tactics
In her statement, the senator accused the President of rehashing his 2016 campaign tactics, which she described as full of empty rhetoric, and criticized him for saying that the opposition candidates were going to hell.
“Well, the country is in hell right now, courtesy of Duterte’s unfulfilled promises made during his hot air campaign for the presidency and his unstable behavior. He is using the same tricks now with his candidates, hoping to fool Filipino voters twice in a row,” De Lima said.
According to her, the President’s campaign in 2016 was based on “pure gimmickry and uninhibited demagoguery, with no solid program of government on which to anchor his outlandish promises.”
De Lima called on voters not to let the President “fool us twice.”
“By now, we clearly know that there are no shortcuts to good government. There are no magic portals to crime-free communities in six months. There are no crazy formulas to solving poverty or ending corruption,” she said.
Mayor Duterte said a third party should organize the debate.
Tolentino defeat
One of the President’s most vocal critics, De Lima has been detained for more than two years on drug-related charges filed by the Duterte administration. She has denied the accusations.
De Lima called on Tolentino to accept his defeat in the 2016 senatorial race after he said in a recent campaign event that he could sit in the Senate immediately if she would resign.