Sara may have a good chance at 2022 presidency: analyst

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio might have a good chance in the next elections for president if her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, managed to maintain a high level of popularity until 2022, an analyst said yesterday.
Antonio “Butch” Valdes, head of the Save the Nation Movement, said the president’s popularity was expected to affect the people’s vote in the next elections.
The president’s approval ratings had inched up to hit his personal best of 79%, according to latest findings by pollster Social Weather Stations.
“If the popularity of Duterte is maintained at present levels, all the way to 2022, Sara may have a good chance at running for the presidency,” Valdes told Manila Times in an interview. “But there is the possibility that living conditions may get worse if main issues are not addressed which affect PRRD’s (Duterte’s) popularity,” he said.
Valdes cited the high cost of electricity, water, hospitalisation and telecommunications, rising prices of food and medicine, which he said, were “controlled by oligarchic interests” and “protected by legislation and legislators.”
“If these issues are not addressed, the next president will be chosen by the oligarchy and not by the people as what had happened in the recent elections,” he said. But analyst Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform, said it was “too early” to predict the winning chance of Duterte-Carpio, who is rumoured to be gunning for the country’s top post.
Analyst Perlita Frago-Marasigan, political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City, said “timing matters” as voters’ support for the Duterte administration might still change.
“It is true that those who have reached the senatorial position usually aspire for the presidency, too. But the timing matters a lot,” Marasigan told this newspaper.
“If the president’s daughter decides to run for the presidency in 2022, she can if she wants to, but winning it is another thing,” she said.
Duterte-Carpio heads the administration-backed regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago, which toured the country to campaign for its Senate slate in the May 13 elections.
Majority of its candidates are tipped to win the polls, in a boost to the administration seeking to firm up its hold on allies in the Senate. The Davao City mayor, however, remained coy about her political plans in 2022.
“I did not run for the Senate because I am not interested in a national position. If PDP (Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan) ran this campaign, opposition senators would have won,” Duterte-Carpio told Manila Times in a text message.