Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is running for Senate in next year’s elections, avoiding a race for vice-president that would have pitted him against his daughter.
Bong Go, a Philippine senator and a close aide of the president, told reporters Duterte formally filed his campaign papers with the election commission Monday.
The elder Duterte’s decision comes days after his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, announced she was seeking the Pacific archipelago’s number two job.
Mayor Duterte-Carpio had been widely expected to run to succeed her father as president, and has been leading in several voter opinion surveys.
Duterte is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term as president.
The International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into a brutal anti-drug campaign launched by Duterte shortly after he took office in 2016 that has left more than 8,600 people dead, according to a report released earlier this year by the United Nations human rights office.
The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines. Among the contenders to run in the 2022 elections are Senator Bong Go, who is backed by Duterte, and Ferdinand Marcos, Junior, the son of the late autocratic president.
Source: Voice of America