MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte defended the presence of Communications secretary Martin Andanar at a PDP-Laban sortie in San Juan City as the proxy of former Special Assistant to the President and now senatorial candidate Christopher “Bong” Go.
In an interview on Friday at Malacañang, Duterte said Andanar’s presence was exempted from his prohibition on government officials campaigning for candidates in the May elections.
“The law says they can campaign. I did not allow the other members because they might, they will be campaigning if they want to and they will be using government cars, government fuel and I wanted to remove that kind of issue just to be fair,” Duterte said.
“But Andanar, he’s an ideologue. His guidance is very important to all of the PDP members. He’s a son of one of the founding fathers of PDP-Laban. And there are only few of them left original,” he added.
Duterte also said he had thought of Andanar, son of original PDP-Laban stalwart Wencelito Andanar, as Go’s proxy in the event because reelectionist Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III was “tied up with his Senate work.”
“I was not around. I was not an original member. So that’s the reason why I allowed him to go public,” the President said.
Duterte said it several times before that Cabinet and the security forces cannot campaign for any candidates and has to remain non-partisan during the election season.
Under the Omnibus Election Code, government officers, employees, police and military, barangay self-defense units and all other para-military units are prohibited from engaging in any partisan political activity, except to vote or to preserve public order, if he is a peace officer./PN
