Duterte, 71, longtime Davao City mayor, went to the city’s public cemetery early dawn Tuesday and paid a visit to his parents, Vicente, who was a governor, and Soledad, who was a teacher.
“We’ll wait for the official results and we can comment more directly there about our ability to work with the winners of that election”, he said.
The vice president looks likely to be Leni Robredo, a social activist who is now slightly ahead of Bongbong Marcos, the son of a former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
He said his law and order policy had been the key to his success.
On Monday, Duterte was asked to comment on his image as an advocate of mass-murder of crime suspects. But an estimated 500,000 people turned out for Duterte’s last rally just as outgoing President Benigno Aquino took to the stage to renew his call for candidates to unite against the long-time mayor of the southern city of Davao.
On being elected, Duterte doubled down on his campaign promises, vowing to end crime across the nation and eliminate corruption within six months. Their spokespersons have already made haste to assure the world that they will keep Mr. Duterte under control. Though he sometimes publicly throws around pejorative terms like queer, Duterte has also firmly condemned discrimination against the LGBT community in the Philippines. “It’s with humility, extreme humility that I accept the mandate of the people”.
Mar Roxas said “it is clear Mayor Duterte will be the next president” after unofficial tallies showed Duterte with an insurmountable lead. Mr Duterte’s spokesman, Peter Lavina, told a news conference that the new president would seek a national consensus for a revision of the constitution which would switch from a unitary form of government to a parliamentary and federal model.
“I ain’t there until I am there”, Malaya Business Insight reported Duterte as saying soon after being informed about the results. In Saturday’s campaign speech, Duterte promised to “do just what I did as mayor” if elected. There are four other candidates vying for the presidency.
He happily admits to being a womanizer, makes jokes about participating in gang rapes and says Viagra changed his life, but he’s also earned the support of several prominent women’s-rights activists, who say his actions speak louder than his words. With respect to a long-running dispute with China over islands in the South China Sea, Duterte said he backs resolving the issue with multilateral talks.
Aquino, whose parents were democracy champions who helped topple the senior Marcos, also campaigned against Marcos Jr., who has never clearly apologized for economic plunder and widespread human rights abuses under his father.