Is Sara Duterte her father’s daughter?
Is she, the country’s newly elected
vice president (VP), and Rodrigo Duterte, who ends his presidency today, 30
June, of similar disposition to the point where their thoughts and actions can
be one and the same?
Many will say no. In fact, they will argue,
Sara went against Rody’s wishes that she run for president after her term as
Davao City mayor ended this year.
After months of rumors and speculation,
during which Sara flip-flopped — saying, on 9 July 2021, that she was open to
running for president and then taking back her word on 9 September, since her
father would run for VP, opting instead to seek reelection as Davao City mayor
— the 44-year-old lawyer and long-serving public official finally declared, on
13 November, she would seek not the country’s highest post but, rather, the
second highest.
It did not sit well with Rody.
But fathers
learn to take things in stride. After all, Sara is her unica hija, her only daughter who has brought him pride
after getting the biggest number of votes in the May 2022 elections, over 32
million, higher than that of President Bongbong Marcos’ 31 million.
The sight of Sara and Rody embracing
onstage at her oath-taking as VP on 19 June in Davao was a sign that all’s well
between them.
Circumstance
To push further the idea that father and daughter share the same destiny,
consider the following circumstance:
Rody studied law, passed the bar and
worked as a prosecutor in Davao before entering politics as officer-in-charge
vice mayor appointee of then President Cory Aquino in 1986.
Sara — who said in her VP inaugural
speech on 19 June, “My younger self was consumed by a dream to become a
doctor,” and finished her pre-med course, BS Respiratory Therapy, in 1999 —
shifted to law, passed the bar and worked as a court attorney at the office of
Supreme Court Associate Justice Romeo Callejo Sr. before successfully running
for Davao City vice mayor in 2007.
Did Sara imagine herself becoming
Philippine president one day? Why not, since she has virtually one foot in the
door. But then again, will she be ready for such a huge and crucial
responsibility, if and when she decides to pursue it?
Feather in her cap
In any case, her achievement as Davao City mayor speaks for itself.
Davao City is almost debt-free, she
declared at the end of her list of accomplishments.
Its total assets of P23 billion in 2020
made Davao the eighth richest city in the country.
It has adopted the name of the child
abuse victim to its child welfare hotline and assistance program which has
“dramatically” reduced the number of child abuse complaints, with no child
deaths reported due to abuse and maltreatment.
Sara’s administration was behind the
expansion of the coverage of the Lingap Para sa Mahirap program that assisted
patients with their hospital bills, plus the one-stop shop medical assistance
concept that placed under one roof all national government agencies with services
for medical assistance which allowed zero billing for patients.
It was, said Sara, the inspiration for
Senator Bong Go’s pet project, the Malasakit Center, which is now part of a law
that provides free medicines and free hospitalization bills for indigent
patients nationwide.
Davao, which had been a hotbed of
insurgency in the 1980s, has benefitted from the peace and security efforts of
both administrations of father and daughter.
Sara said her anti-insurgency program
provides social and economic support to residents in rebel-influenced villages.
Through the project Peace 911, Sara
said, “We regularly brought in government services and private sector
initiatives; we opened direct lines from the communities to the Mayor’s Office,
built more roads and bridges, empowered residents with various projects and
skills trainings, provided a gateway for them to sell their produce and even
employed former members of underground mass organizations as peacebuilders to
help the local government sustain peace.”
She made the flood monitoring of river
systems highly interactive through the installation of cameras as well as
sirens in coastal communities.
There’s a TV monitor built along a busy
intersection in Ulas, and two more to be installed, which will issue advisories
and monitoring during floods and other emergencies.
Other infrastructures built include a
Covid-19 laboratory, satellite offices of Lingap centers to allow access to
remote villages, a new mental wellness center for the homeless, a cremation
facility near a the city’s largest public cemetery, improvement of a remote
hospital to its current Level 2 hospital category, and improved holding and
drop-in centers for abused children.
There’s likewise the construction of nine
additional police stations, investment promotion and tourism buildings, a
national museum approved by the National Museum, the preparatory groundwork for
a city hospital and a city college, new buildings for City Hall offices, the
modernized Agdao Farmers’ Market.
Inclusivity Sara’s
goal
In line with inclusivity, Moro and ethnolinguistic tribal groups will benefit
from the creation of the Interim Indigenous People’s Affairs Office and the
Interim Moro Affairs Office.
As for wiping out the city’s loans,
Sara expounded: “Over the years, the city government contracted loans to
finance major products for the development of the city. As we continue to
implement the projects, we have also been allocating an ample budget every year
to diligently pay back our loans.”
From 2016 to 2021, the Davao City
government spent P8.2 billion sourced from the Annual Development Fund for both
infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects.
More than 3,000 projects were
completed, including 1,424 roads, 51 bridges, 180 school buildings, 63 office
buildings, 44 barangay halls, 84 health centers, nine police stations, 748
irrigation and canal projects, 172 water systems, 11 electrification projects
and 669 other structures.
City Hall partnered with Davao Light
and Power Co. for the ongoing replacement of sodium lamps in street posts to
the more energy-efficient LED lights, along with the City Underground Cabling
project to remove the messy electric wires in electric posts and place them
underground.
“Today, the entire stretch of CM Recto
Street from corner San Pedro to corner Magsaysay Avenue is free from the messy
tangle of wires and cables, with more areas to follow in the coming months,”
Sara said.
“This year, we have allocated P46.706
million in the 2022 budget to cover the remaining loan balance and by the end
of the first half of the Calendar Year 2022, Davao City will be debt-free.”
As she gears up to serve as VP and
Education Secretary, it bears watching how Sara Duterte will add honor and
respect to the family name.
The Daily Tribune
June 30, 2022
BE YOUR OWN BOSS! Join
the most trending Online Negosyo now.
For only 17,888 you
can have 5 online shops of various food, health and beauty products, plus Ninja
Ion and Coppermask.
Reserve your slots
now. Send a message by clicking the button below.
Ask me how, leave me a message in https://www.facebook.com/siomai.online0212/
What can you say about this?
Share us your thoughts by simply
leaving on the comment section below. For more news updates, feel free to visit
our site often.
Stay updated with today's relevant
news and trends by hitting the LIKE button.
Thanks for dropping by and reading
this post.
Report from Daily Tribune
Disclaimer: Contributed articles does not
reflect the view of THE PH
CHRONICLES. This website cannot guarantee the legitimacy of some of
the information contributed to us. You may do additional research if you find
some information doubtful. No part of this article maybe reproduced
without permission from this website.
0 Comments