NEWSUPDATES247 reports that Philippines Vice President Leni Robredo has declared her readiness to succeed President Rodrigo Duterte in the 2022 elections.
This online news platform learnt that Robredo made her intention known in a speech delivered in Tagalog on Thursday.
She said, “I’m officially offering myself as candidate for president in the 2022 elections. I will take on the fight. We will fight together,” Robredo said as she hopes to replicate her ‘come-from-behind’ 2016 victory in an election reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Philippine Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo announces her candidacy for president, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, October 7, 2021. REUTERS/Lisa Marie David
“The challenge we face is clear to everyone. We’ve seen the lies and the abuse. They have the money and the machinery.”
NEWSUPDATES247 reports that Robredo, 56, has been Duterte’s vice president since they were both sworn into office in 2016. But she has locked horns with Duterte on several issues and has labelled his so-called deadly war on drugs a “failure”.
In the Philippines, presidents and vice presidents are elected separately which usually produce candidates from rival parties.
Robredo on Thursday further made the difference between her and Duterte glaring when she declared that “we will defeat the old and rotten type of politics. We will hand back to ordinary Filipinos the power to make change.”
Meanwhile, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son and namesake of the Philippine strongman, who was removed following a popular revolt in 1986, has also joined the presidential race.
