Duterte campaigners say Alan their priority, too

AFTER recently raising the hand of vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo, former President Fidel V. Ramos raises the hands of another set of candidates, presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte and his running mate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano during a meeting in Makati early this month. RICHARD A. REYES

DAVAO CITY—The campaign team of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said it is also doubling its efforts to prop Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano’s standing amid survey results that showed he was lagging behind other vice presidential candidates, specifically Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang, a member of the Duterte campaign team, said they have high hopes that Cayetano’s standing would rise in the coming days, as shown by his consistent gain in surveys.

Cayetano’s rating in the latest Pulse Asia survey is 14 percent, up two percentage points from a similar survey conducted in February.

Dayanghirang said Duterte also gave his campaign team instructions to campaign hard for Cayetano.

He said the same strategy being used for Duterte is also being used to move forward Cayetano’s position.

Dayanghirang said on Saturday, the Duterte campaign team and representatives of groups supportive of the mayor met here and decided to focus their efforts on Visayan-speaking voters and “divided Luzon.”

“What we need is the Visayan dialect to be one which is Visayas and Mindanao,” Dayanghirang said, adding that a divided Luzon, which meant that no single candidate would monopolize the Luzon votes, would also provide a good chance for both Duterte and Cayetano.

The Duterte campaign team also acknowledged that their weakest point at present is resources as Duterte did not want to accept donations from those who have businesses with the government.

Dayanghirang said unlike other teams, the Duterte team is banking on the people to move forward the mayor’s candidacy and that of Cayetano.

“The machinery of the people is not a political party, it’s the people themselves brought together by the issues of crime, drug and corruption,” said Dayanghirang.

“They saw in the personality of the mayor that he can be an agent of change,” he said.  Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao