Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announces retirement from politics

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced that he will be retiring from politics. Speaking before reporters the PDP–Laban chairman said that he will not be running for vice president in next year’s elections when his term ends. 

Last month, Duterte had said that he would run for the vice presidency in 2022 as Philippines’ constitution bars him from a second term as president.

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However, Duterte said many Filipinos have expressed their opposition to his vice-presidential bid in surveys and public forums.

“The overwhelming sentiment of the Filipino is that I’m not qualified, and it would be a violation of the constitution,” Duterte said. “In obedience to the will of the people … I will follow what you wish and today I announce my retirement from politics.”

This announcement from the 76-year-old comes amid speculation that his daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, who is currently mayor of Davao, could run for president. Last month she had said that he would not join the race, because she and her father had agreed that only one of them would run for national office in next year’s election.

But now with Duterte withdrawing, a presidential campaign for his daughter is a likely possibility. She has led every opinion poll conducted this year.

Duterte took office in 2016 and immediately launched a crackdown on illegal drugs that has left more than 6,000 mostly petty suspects dead and alarmed Western governments and human rights groups. The International Criminal Court has launched an investigation of the killings but he has vowed never to cooperate with the inquiry and allow ICC investigators to enter the country.

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Him accepting his party’s nomination for him to seek the vice presidency in the May 9 elections had outraged many of his opponents. Some of them described him as a human rights calamity in an Asian bastion of democracy.

Duterte announced his surprise withdrawal from the election after accompanying his former longtime aide, Sen. Bong Go, to register his own vice presidential candidacy with the ruling party at a Commission on Elections center.

While two past presidents have run for lower elected positions after their terms ended in recent history, Duterte was the first to consider running for the vice presidency. If he pursued the candidacy and won, that could elevate him back to the presidency if the elected leader dies or is incapacitated for any reason.

There was no immediate reaction from the president’s daughter, who has gone on a weeklong medical leave.

With inputs from the Associated Press