Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing president of the Philippines, took her oath on Sunday as vice president following a landslide electoral victory she clinched despite her father’s human rights record that saw thousands of drug suspects gunned down.
The inauguration in their southern hometown of Davao, where she is the outgoing mayor, came two weeks before she assumes office on Thursday next week as specified in the Philippine constitution. President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Duterte’s running mate, is to take his oath in Manila the same day.
“I’m not the best or the most intelligent person in the Philippines and the world, but nobody can beat the toughness of my heart as a Filipino,” Duterte, who wore a green traditional gown, said in a speech after she took her oath before a Supreme Court associate justice, her hand resting on a Bible held by her mother.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The voice of 32.2 million Filipinos was loud and clear — with the message to serve our motherland,” Duterte said, referring to the votes she got, to an applause from thousands of supporters.
Fondly called by supporters as “Inday Sara,” the mother of three called for national unity and devotion to God and asked Filipinos to emulate the patriotism of the country’s national hero Jose Rizal. She cited long-standing social ills facing Filipino children, including poverty, broken families, illegal drugs, bullying and online misinformation, and asked parents to ingrain in them the values of integrity, discipline, respect for others and compassion.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, 77, led the VIPs in the heavily guarded ceremony at a public square near city hall in the port city of Davao, where he had also served as a mayor starting in the late 1980s. His family, hailing from a modest middle-class background, built a formidable political dynasty in the restive southern region long troubled by communist and Muslim insurgencies and violent political rivalries.
Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency has been marked by a brutal anti-drugs campaign that has left thousands of mostly petty suspects shot dead by police or vigilantes. The drug killings are being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.
The electoral triumphs of Sara Duterte and Marcos Jr have alarmed left-wing and human rights groups because of their failure to acknowledge the massive human rights atrocities that took place under their fathers, including late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.
Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte campaigned on a vague platform of national unity without clearly addressing activists’ calls for them to take steps to prosecute the elder Duterte when he retires from politics.
One of the president’s sons, Sebastian Duterte, is to succeed his sister as Davao mayor, and another son, Paolo Duterte, won a seat in the House of Representatives in the May 9 elections. The outgoing president’s late father was a former Davao governor.
Philippine elections have long been dominated by politicians belonging to the same bloodlines. At least 250 political families have monopolized power across the country, although such dynasties are prohibited under the constitution.
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