UNDER SCRUTINY Manila Mayor Francisco “IskoMoreno” Domagoso greets President Duterte in this file photo. Critics now question Domagoso’s real motive for his candidacy. —FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso has virtually outed himself as a supporter of President Duterte with his tirades against Vice President Leni Robredo that echoed the words used by administration backers against her, according to opposition senatorial candidate Antonio Trillanes IV.
Trillanes said this showed that Domagoso was only pretending when he collaborated with Robredo on projects like the vaccination program.
“That was not his real personality. This is his real personality. When he was triggered, his views came out and he used words that are only used by hardcore Duterte supporters. That’s it. He outed himself prematurely, or maybe it was timely,” Trillanes said in a phone interview.
Trillanes said it was not far-fetched to think that there is truth behind the rumor that Domagoso was a secret candidate of the Duterte administration for the presidency since the people behind Domagoso’s campaign like Lito Banayo were appointees of Duterte, and that some of them have not even resigned from their posts.
Domagoso earlier criticized Robredo, after she filed her certificate of candidacy, for saying she was running for president to prevent another Marcos from returning to power and scoffed at her call for unity when she herself cannot unite the Liberal Party.
Fight against the Marcoses
Domagoso also asked why the world had to revolve around the fight between the Marcoses and the Aquinos.
He called Robredo a “fake leader with a fake color,” in reference to her choice of pink for her campaign in her run as an independent candidate instead of yellow, one of the colors associated with the Liberal Party.
In a radio interview, Trillanes said Domagoso failed to get the context of Robredo’s reason for running to prevent the Marcoses’ return to power, explaining that this was tied to her goal of putting a stop to the practices of the Duterte administration.
“The Duterte regime is the political child or political offspring of the Marcos regime,” he said.
Duterte modeled his oppressive policies on the Marcos dictatorship, he said.
‘Duterte enablers’
“This is why there is a need to bring to the consciousness of the people that the oppressive policies and abuses of the poor come from the Marcoses. This is what she was stressing,” he said.
He also said Domagoso’s earlier statement that he idolized Marcos was a red flag.
“If this is the case, if Mayor Isko becomes president, he will also use the tactics used by Marcos to oppress our countrymen so that he could expand his power and remain in power. That is dangerous,” he said.
Domagoso, in an interview with Esquire magazine in 2019, said the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was his inspiration in the field of development.
Trillanes said he considered both Domagoso and the ruling party’s standard-bearer Sen. Ronald dela Rosa as “Duterte enablers” and, therefore, Duterte candidates.