Former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas visited a public market in Pasay last March 2, 2019, as part of his campaign for the May 2019 elections. (INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines — The campaign manager of former Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who running for senator in the May 2019 elections, brushed off on Saturday President Rodrigo Duterte’s remark that Roxas should just be a traffic aide.
“Mar Roxas will do anything to serve our country and people. Just like when he persevered in bringing to the country the call center industry which employs over a million Filipinos today,” Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice said in a text message to INQUIRER.net.
In a speech Friday, the President said Roxas should have been a traffic aide, citing a video of Roxas directing traffic.
“During the intermission, there were advertisements. Roxas was managing traffic. Uy, Roxas, if that is the only thing that you are capable of doing, you should have worked as a traffic aide instead,” the President said during the distribution of certificates of land ownership award in Negros Occidental.
READ: Duterte: Mar Roxas should just be a traffic aide
In his response, Erice said: “Mar Roxas will direct traffic when no one will do so to put order in a given situation, he went to the farthest most dangerous places in our country because it was needed.”
In 2014, Roxas drew flak from netizens for trying to act like an ordinary person in TV advertisements — managing traffic and hauling a sack of rice — and for falling off a motorcycle during relief operations in the wake of Typhoon Ruby in Eastern Samar. /atm