An old tune

The filing of the Certificate of Candidacy (COC) for those who want to run in the upcoming elections began in earnest last Friday. Some immediately submitted their COC like Sen. Manny Pacquiao who will run for the presidency. He is said to be retiring from boxing and will now focus on his career in politics. His candidate for vice president is Lito Atienza. As of this writing, Pacquiao is the only official candidate to run for president. Others who have announced their intention to run like Sen. Ping Lacson and Mayor Isko Moreno have yet to file their respective COCs this week.

In a somewhat surprising move by President Duterte, he announced his retirement from politics and endorsed Sen. Bong Go as the vice presidential candidate of PDP-Laban. But we have heard this tune before. Duterte also announced his retirement in 2015. But we saw what happened. He replaced the resigned Martin Diño at the last minute to run for the presidency after he consistently led in surveys at the time. The last day set by Commission on Elections this year for substitution is November 15.

So all eyes are now on Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte. She recently filed her COC to run for a third term as Davao City mayor, which she did say she would do. She previously announced not seeking the presidency if her father runs for vice president because she did not want to see two Dutertes run for the two highest positions in the government. But with the withdrawal of President Duterte, the door is wide open for her. Duterte practically confirmed this by saying Sara will run for president alongside Bong Go as vice president. There has been no comment from Sara's camp. A far cry from the time she expressly did not want to have anything to do with PDP-Laban and its infighting.

Many have foreseen this happening. There is still more than a month for that to happen. At present, PDP-Laban does not have an official candidate for the position of president with Comelec yet to decide whether the Cusi faction or the Pacquiao faction is the official PDP-Laban. Sara could easily be sworn into PDP-Laban and then be its official standard-bearer. As for the so-called opposition, there is no shortage of candidates. So plans for a united opposition to face the administration bet is now lost with the intention of several aspirants to run. Will someone eventually drop out of the race and support a winnable candidate, now that surveys will start coming out? We will get to see who puts ambition aside for the good of the country.