Roxas: Polls shouldn’t be like ‘asaran sa kanto’

Liberal party presidential candidate Mar Roxas visit the Islamic Center, Manila, the oldest Muslim community in Luzon.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

LEYTE MUNICIPALITY, Leyte – Amid the brouhaha over presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial remarks, Liberal Party standard-bearer Mar Roxas reminded that the elections should not be like “asaran sa kanto (quarreling at the street corner).”

Roxas believes that voters will use their common sense and exercise good judgment to see who among the candidates deserve to steer the nation in the right direction.

“Ang Pilipino, matalino. Ang Pilipino may sentido kumon. Nakikita naman talaga nila ang katotohanan, kung ano yung mabuti, kung ano yung maayos, ano yung karapat-dapat. At eto nakikita ‘yung pagkatao namin bilang mga kandidato at sila na nga dapat ang magpasya kung karapat-dapat ba itong kandidato o hindi,” he said in a media briefing after campaigning in the province of Leyte.

(Filipinos are intelligent. Filipinos have common sense. They could really see the truth, what is good, what is correct. They could see now how we behave as candidates and they have the final say whether a certain candidate deserves their vote.)

“Hindi ito joke. Hindi ito katawa-tawa. Hindi ito gagamitin to score political points or to score patutsada points. Hindi ito asaran sa isang kanto o sa isang kapihan ng mga magbabarkada eh. So alam naman ng mga kababayan natin kung ano ang tama at may tiwala ako na kikilalanin nila ito,” he added.

(This is not a joke. This is not a laughing matter. This should not be used to score political points or to score wisecrack points. This is not teasing among friends at a street corner or coffee shops. Our countrymen know what is right and I believe they would recognize this.)

Roxas gave the reminder after survey frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte, standard-bearer of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban, spewed out controversial remarks about a female Australian missionary.

Duterte drew widespread criticisms for treating as a joke the rape of Australian missionary Jacqueline Hamill in 1989 inside the Davao City prison. “I was angry she was raped, yes that was one thing. But she was so beautiful, I think the mayor should have been first,” he said during a campaign rally last week.

The Davao City Mayor was also criticized for flip-flopping on his apology for the incident. Initially, Duterte refused to apologize for rape joke.

But his camp, the PDP-Laban, released a statement about Duterte apologizing for his remarks.

Duterte, in media interviews, repeatedly disowned the statement of apology.

The Inquirer Mindanao Bureau received a copy of Duterte’s purported apology on Tuesday morning through a Facebook message, with the mayor’s spokesperson, Peter Lavina, as reference.

When Duterte denied issuing the statement on Tuesday night, the bureau contacted the candidate’s national campaign head, Leoncio Evasco, and the mayor’s executive assistant, Bong Go, to clarify matters. Late Tuesday night, Go sent the Inquirer a text message that said, “OK na. (He has) confirmed (it).”

It turned out that while a local PDP-Laban official had talked to the mayor about the possible release of the apology statement, the official later failed to inform Duterte that the press release had in fact been issued that morning.

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