DAVAO CITY – Presumptive Vice President former Davao City mayor Sara Duterte clarified what she wrote on the armchair she used when she cast her vote at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School (DRANHS) in Barangay Matina this city during the May 9 national and local elections.
“I wrote down ‘Mahalin natin ang Pilipinas (Let us love the Philippines).’ Then I signed my name. Then date,” the presidential daughter was quoted as saying in the statement released by Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP).
The statement was released in the afternoon during Election Day.
The clarification was made as fake and edited photographs of what the vice presidential candidate wrote on the armchair inside the voting precinct have been since been circulating on social media.
The officials of the school where Duterte cast her vote had actually asked for her written message on the armchair she used so that the same would be preserved for the school’s museum. Mayor Sara vowed to donate five armchairs for the school in return.
Actually, in the afternoon of the same day, President Rodrigo Duterte had also signed the chair he used when he cast his vote during the 2016 elections, also at the same school.
The President's armchair, dubbed as the “historical chair,” was placed outside the polling precinct after he cast his vote.
Mayor Sara joined politics in 2007 when she was elected as the city's vice mayor until 2010.
In 2010, she was elected mayor of Davao City and lasted until 2013. She campaigned for mayor of Davao City in both 2016 and 2019, and won both times.
Mayor Sara, who is also a lawyer, is Davao City's first female mayor and the city's youngest elected official.