Sara Duterte's regional party open to forging alliances

MANILA, Philippines — The regional party being led by the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte is not yet ready to go to a national level but is open to forging alliances with other political groups.

In a statement, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio stressed that her Hugpong ng Pagbabago was still a regional party in the Davao Region and was not made to go to the national level.

Her statement comes amid reports that some members of the ruling PDP-Laban Party were starting to transfer to the regional party.

"We did not see this growing interest of other politicians from other regions," Carpio said.  

She said that going to the national level would be a "difficult decision," something that she was not prepared to make yet.

"Even other officers are not keen on deciding on this," she said.

Reports of tranfer to Sara's party started following the ouster of Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez (Davao Del Norte) as House speaker.

Multiple reports quoting sources said that the removal of Alvarez was partly due to Sara Duterte, who supposedly burned the phone lines to drum up support for Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Pampanga) who successfully ousted Alvarez.

Alvarez is the secretary general of PDP-Laban, the party of President Duterte.

Despite her reluctance to go national, Sara however said that their party was set to forge alliances with other groups in a bid to help one another.

In launching Hugpong ng Pagbabago in February, Sara was able to secure the support of almost all local officials in the Davao region.

Alvarez supposedly said that the regional party was part of the opposition as it was not part of the administration party.

This led to a word war between Sara and the former House leader, an anger that Alvarez fully felt on Monday when he was booted out of the Speaker's Office.