Baste takes Sara’s place on campaign trail

LUCENA CITY – Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, Hugpong ng Pagbabago campaign manager on Monday rushed to Davao City for an urgent “family issue,” leaving her younger brother Sebastian or Baste to temporarily take her place on the campaign trail.

After a short ambush interview with newsmen here, Duterte-Carpio said she would immediately return home to attend to an urgent family issue.

She did not elaborate.

She said Baste would take over her role of leading the campaign sorties of HNP in the Bicol region until Thursday.

“I don’t know how many days it will take to resolve the issue in Davao,” she told news reporters here before she left after gracing the opening of the HNP campaign sorties at the Quezon Convention Center Monday morning.

When asked about President Duterte’s advice to her on her exchange of personal, and often, acerbic tirades with Vice President Leni Robredo and the Otso Diretso senatorial candidates, she admitted that her father seldom talked to her.

“We only see each other during family celebrations, during birthdays and personals,” she explained.

She reiterated that she was observing a “ceasefire” with the political opposition.

“My Mom (Elizabeth Abellana Zimmerman) told me to stop it. Stop the bullying and be kind before I speak. Isipin ko daw muna kung kind ba yung sinasabi ko o hindi at kapag hindi daw kind ay wag na akong magsalita (Think if what I am about to say is kind or not and if it is not, then I should not say anything),” she told reporters.

Meanwhile, Duterte-Carpio again defended HNP senatorial candidate Bong Go on the controversy of the supposed poll survey results conducted by the Social Weather Station (SWS), in which the former special assistant to President Duterte was “surging” to the top three of the senatorial race with 47 percent approval of respondents surveyed between Feb. 25-28.

However, the SWS did not categorically deny or admit the veracity of the said survey.

Duterte-Carpio asked the public to just wait for the release of the SWS and Pulse Asia survey results./lzb