Presidential aspirants Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Mar Roxas. FILE PHOTOS
DAVAO CITY — The camp of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte slammed the Liberal Party for describing the mayor as a “threat to democracy” who has been thriving in the “politics of fear.”
Peter Laviña, spokesperson of Duterte, pointed to the Liberal Party and the ruling elite which he said had done nothing but “protect its own interests,” as the true threats to democracy.
“Like the rest of the presidential candidates who are threatened by a Duterte presidency, (LP standard bearer Mar) Roxas and his minions fear they will lose the trappings of that political power they have been holding on and clinging to for so long,” said Laviña in a statement.
After news broke that Duterte had topped the latest SWS survey — the same survey that placed Roxas second to the last — Akbayan partylist Rep. and LP spokesperson Barry Gutierrez attacked the mayor of Davao and described his politics as “politics of fear.”
But the statement, Laviña said, showed how rattled LP had become by the looming defeat of its standard bearer Roxas.
“It is not democracy that is being threatened by Duterte. It is Mar Roxas and his ambition to become president and the ruling class, the same ruling class represented by Poe and Binay,” Laviña said. “At the very least, these candidates offer blind servitude to their elite masters — something that cannot be expected of Duterte.”
Laviña said Duterte’s wellspring of support came from the ordinary people – farmers, workers, lower and upper middle class and even from a section of the elite.
“”These are the people that the camp of Roxas and the other presidential candidates are afraid of — the people they have angered and alienated by their inept and elite brand of leadership,” said Laviña.
Gutierrez, he said, needed only to look at his own party to know what has been the real threat to democracy and who has been the purveyor of the politics of fear.
“Look at what this government did to the farmers of North Cotabato? The farmers were hungry, but instead of giving them food, what the Aquino government did was to murder them. That’s your threat to democracy and politics of fear, Mr. Gutierrez,” Laviña said.
And contrary to the claim of Gutierrez, Duterte’s brand of politics has placed the people at the center, allowing them to win over their “miserable lives all because the government is a failure,” he said.
“Duterte’s politics is the politics of real change and it is not a surprise that thousands and thousands of Filipinos gravitate toward this,” Laviña said. SFM
