(Eagle News)—The Palace has described as “nonsensical” journalist Ellen Tordesillas’ comment a Davao Mayor Sara Duterte presidency in 2022 was President Rodrigo Duterte’s “insurance” from an International Criminal Court arrest.
In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in the first place, the ICC, where communications have been filed against the President in connection with the drug war, has no jurisdiction over the chief executive “and for that matter any Filipino citizen.”
“It is no hidden fact that Ms. Tordesillas as a columnist is a vocal sympathizer of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and the Magdalo cause and staunch critic of the President and his administration,” Panelo said.
He said it was “a no brainer that a biased journalist or columnist like Ms. Tordesillas would regularly come up with conjectures inimical to the President.”
“That is what we call black propaganda,” he said.
In her column, Tordesillas said there was “no need to revise the Constitution to allow Duterte to continue being in power after 2022.”
“Sara succeeding him in Malacañang will assure Duterte that the ICC won’t be allowed in the country to arrest him when the case progresses to that stage. He would not have to answer for the extra-judicial killings attributed to him,” she said.
The Davao mayor has said she would decide on whether to run for president or not in 2021, a year before her father’s term is slated to end.
