Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Tuesday, May 14, said President Rodrigo Duterte and his drug war won as administration-backed senatorial candidates led the race in the 2019 election polls.
“The Senatorial elections were not a referendum in favor of Charter Change either, the death penalty, and jailing minors. The elections were a referendum on Duterte and his war on drugs. He & the war just won,” he posted on Twitter.
He also told the public to “shut up” about the subject already as the drug war “goes on.”
At least eight candidates endorsed by the president are leading the race for 12 Senate seats in the latest update of partial and unofficial tally of votes from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) — among them are reelectionist senator Cynthia Villar, former presidential aide Bong Go, Taguig Rep. Pia Cayetano, former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Bato dela Rosa, reelectionist senator Sonny Angara, former Ilocos Norte governor Imee Marcos, former presidential adviser for political affairs Francis Tolentino, and reelectionist senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.
The opposition senatorial candidates, however, believed that the midterm elections result is a “referendum on the Duterte administration.”
Duterte endeavored to achieve stronger leverage in the traditionally more independent Senate so as to bolster his legislative agenda — this includes propositions such as the return of the death penalty, lowering the age for criminal liability below the current 15, and revising Philippines’ 1987 Constitution to allow a shift towards federalism.
Opposition senators managed to block various proposed bills last year that they thought would undermine civil liberties.
To veto Duterte’s emerging majority in the upper chamber, the remaining opposition senators whose seats are not up for election need get backing from leading independent aspirants since at least seven senators are needed to block any proposal by Duterte’s camp to revise the Constitution.
