MANILA, Philippines — Presidential candidate and Manila mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso on Tuesday said that he will stick with his running mate Dr. Willie Ong but also remarked that he respects the choice of his other supporters who paired him with vice presidential bet and Davao mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
Despite this, Ong stressed that he has no hard feelings with the development, saying he is thankful for Moreno choosing him as his running mate and that he will stick with the mayor until the end.
READ: Doc Willie keeps ‘eyes on the ball’: No hard feelings despite ‘mix and match’ VP bets for Isko
“Same thing ako (for me). Isko-Doc Willie. Period,” Moreno told reporters in an ambush interview in response to Ong’s statement that he will stand with him until the end.
“As a candidate hindi naman natin mapipigilang ‘yung choices [of voters], kasi hindi naman tayo two party system,” Moreno added, noting that the country’s system differs to that of United States, where the president and vice president come from the same party.
(As a candidate we can’t control the choices of other people since we are not a two party system.)
Moreno called this the “sad truth” of the country’s electoral process.
“But then again, nirerespeto natin yung choices ng taumbayan dahil karapatan nila yun,” he added. (We respect the choices of the people because that’s their right.)
Ong was absent from Aksyon Demokratiko’s three-day sortie in Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato, where local officials declared their support to the Isko-Sara tandem. Even the vehicle Moreno used for his motorcade bore the poster of him together with Duterte, which received a mixed reaction online.
Moreno, who is the president and standard-bearer of Aksyon Demokratiko, said Ong was not included in the sortie lest he would be “humiliated,” since the local chief executives of the said areas have their preferred vice-presidential candidate.
“Ayaw namin siya mapahiya. We don’t want to put my partner, if you are true to your partner, baka maalanganin ka lang. Kasi may iba silang preferred candidate. Which is sila naman ang nag-host, sila naman ang gumastos, sila naman ang tumulong,” Moreno explained.
(We don’t want to humiliate him. We don’t want to put my partner, if you are true to your partner, you don’t want to put him in a difficult situation. Because they have a different preferred candidate, and since they are the host, they organized and spent money for the event.)
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