by LORENZ NIEL SANTOS
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has made an extraordinary appeal for presidential candidates in the May 9 election to unite against frontrunner Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, whom he labeled a threat to democracy.
Aquino’s call came a day after the latest national poll results were released by Social Weather Station (SWS), a social research institution. Thirty-three percent of the respondents in the survey conducted between May 1 -3 said they would vote for the tough-talking Duterte.
Tailing Duterte is Sen. Grace Poe, the adopted daughter of celebrities Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces. While Duterte received the same shares of votes in the previous April 18 to 20 survey, his closest opponent, Poe shed 2% from 24% to come in at 22%.
Aquino pointed out that Duterte only has 30%. He says this means 70% of Filipinos are against him.
“Mayor Duterte has roughly 30%. That means he doesn’t have the 70%. In our democratic system, it’s the majority that decides. Therefore, it behooves everybody to try and get together,” President Aquino said on CNN Philippines.
“Instead of thinking what should we do if everything he says is exactly what he intends to do, why don’t we remove that threat or problem or insecurity by uniting the 70 and defeating the 30. The whole point is, any of two of them unites, if it’s Mar or Grace that unite, we have more than 40%. That defeats the 30%,” Aquino said.
“I am trying to get all of these different voices together and in that sense, perhaps help our candidates get together and have that united front,” the president added.
This is the first time that a sitting Philippines president has directly spoken against presidential candidate.
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