After President Rodrigo Duterte and his closest aide Senator Bong Go withdrew their election documents for the 2022 elections, there was more sadness than relief.
The emotional reaction transcended beyond politics. It was more personal. And rather than being a political matter, it was more of a fragmented family.
President Duterte is well-loved by millions of Filipinos who found in him the fresh hopes of people who felt their very welfare have been abandoned for many administrations past. In him, they found refuge and a new lease of life. That’s what separated him from the rest. Davao’s very own Digong was different and people loved it.
That explains the phenomenon that the elder Duterte is.
That is why everyone clung on to the hopes that his legacy will continue in in the same shape and form by another leader with the Duterte surname or if not, by the man he trusts or any of that combination.
That hope died on Tuesday.
President Duterte is out of the Senatorial race and his aide de camp Go is out of the presidential derby. What is left is Mayor Sara who will run for Vice President.
In the months leading up to the elections in 2016, PRRD went on a “listening tour” before he made the decision to run.
The difference between 2016 and 2022 could boil down to the absence of one crucial element–and that’s listening.
