MANILA – Mayor Vico Sotto of Pasig City lamented that a statement he made the past year was taken out of context by a Facebook post that went viral recently.
The young mayor’s statement was: “Kung magaling kang leader, mapapasa mo sa susunod na lider. Ibig sabihin, may continuity. Hindi ‘yung anak mo lang o ano. Hindi lang naman ang isang tao ang magaling eh. Hindi lang isang pamilya ang magaling. Let’s find the next generation of leaders who will be better than the leaders that we already had.”
According to Sotto, he made the statement “last year pa at hindi presidential elections ang topic.”
He lamented that his statement was “misquoted ng ibang Dilawan group para sumakto sa naratibo nila.”
The social media post inadvertently linked the mayor’s statement to the 2022 elections and the possible presidential bid of President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara, the current mayor of Davao City.
Sotto lamented that “naniwala ang iilang supporters ng Presidente at kaya nagalit.”
The viral statement of the mayor was actually made in an outtake video from the inaugural episode of an online talk show in Metro Manila. He was explaining that he had no intention of keeping power all to himself in Pasig City for years to come, stressing that the true mark of a good leader is the ability to pass the leadership onto someone else.
In that interview, he said this was his vision for Pasig, “kung sino ‘yung pinakamagling, pinakamahusay at pinakatapat, ‘yun yung manalo dito sa Pasig.”
Sotto was elected mayor in 2019, toppling the 27-year dynasty of the Eusebios in Pasig./PN
