MANILA, Philippines — Former president Rodrigo Duterte announced that he will not run for senator, and remained coy about another bid for Davao city hall.
Duterte over the weekend said he is too old to mount a national campaign.
“Do you think I can carry a national campaign at my age or do you want me to die? I will just collapse,” Duterte, 73, answered when asked by Davao media if he would run for senator. “Let us be realistic about it.”
But when asked if he would run for mayor, he said, “If you want me to run, then I will run.”
While Duterte has not yet confirmed if he is running for mayor, he has already issued a warning to all criminals in the city.
“At this early I tell you, get away from the city. If you are a drug pusher, you find another place. The Philippines is big, go to Visayas or Luzon, not here in Davao City because if I become mayor, you will really die,” Duterte said.
“I don’t want illegal drugs. I do not want kidnapping. Just let Davao bloom on its own,” he added.
Duterte also told the Commission on Human Rights to contact these criminals because “they will surely die.”
“I don’t want our children and our city to be destroyed. I don’t want drugs,” he said.
Duterte said he is open to any Nograles – children of his former political rival, the late former House speaker Prospero Nograles – running for mayor.
“We do not have the monopoly
of ambition,” Duterte said.