Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte FILE PHOTO
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has said he would like to kill whoever is behind the movement to make him run for President in the 2016 elections, saying he would rather die early than enter Malacañang.
Duterte also warned prospective financiers never to be fooled by groups who are pushing him to run.
“Don’t be misled, I’m not running, some people suspect that I am behind the moves,” Duterte said during the Sunday television program Gikan sa masa, para sa masa (From the masses, for the masses).
“Do not get swayed. I’m not running, I don’t need your money,” he said.
He said he did not know who started this move but if he knew exactly who started it, he wanted very much to kill him.
“I don’t know who started it but if I knew him, I would want to kill him,” he said.
He reiterated his earlier statements that he has not been interested in the position of President, and would not be in the future.
“I would rather die early than enter Malacañang,” Duterte said.
He said former Transportation Secretary Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez was behind the printing of the t-shirt which quoted what he said during the Senate inquiry on rice smuggling, but he said he did not have anything to do with the moves to make him run for president.
The t-shirt said something about how, “we, in the government, is very fast to talk but very slow to move,” a quote Duterte said during the Senate inquiry on rice smuggling in 2013.
On Friday, even former Sarangani Governor Miguel Dominguez, no longer running for electoral posts these days, said he would drop everything to campaign for Duterte if the longest-term Davao city mayor were to run for president of the republic.
“I will drop everything to campaign for him,” Dominguez said in a chanced interview with reporters inside the Alsons aquaculture compound.
Another group called the Center for Enterprise Advancement reportedly came up with surveys identifying Duterte as the most preferred person to run for President, prompting Duterte to reiterate what he had been saying before — that he’d rather retire from politics than run for the national post.
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