Duterte drops out of 2022 Senate race after last-minute entry

MANILA • Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday withdrew his candidacy for the 2022 Senate race, the government elections monitor said, a month after he made a last-minute entry into the contest.

Mr Duterte, 76, is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election, and his decision to run for the Senate had been seen as a way of staying in politics while facing an international probe into his deadly drug war.

"The President has filed his withdrawal from the Senatorial elections," Mr James Jimenez, spokesman for the Commission on Elections office, said on Twitter.

Mr Duterte decided to withdraw from the May elections to "better focus" on the government's pandemic response and ensure "orderly and peaceful elections", his spokesman Karlo Nograles said. "After over four decades in public service, the President plans to retire from government to spend more time with his family when his term ends in June 2022," Mr Nograles added, without specifying if Mr Duterte was quitting politics altogether.

The elections will see candidates contest more than 18,000 posts.

Mr Duterte said previously that he would run for the country's second-highest office, before changing his mind and announcing plans to retire from politics.

But his withdrawal may not necessarily mean he will exit politics. Under election rules, he has until midday on election day to be a substitute for another candidate sharing his surname if the candidate is disqualified or dies.

Mr Duterte's daughter Sara is running for vice-president, while his son Sebastian is contesting the mayoral race in the family's southern stronghold of Davao City.

"It's very dizzying," said Dr Antonio Contreras, a political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE