Duterte says presidency not a job for women, tells daughter Sara not to run

President Rodrigo Duterte said he told his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, not to run for president in 2022.

He also said that the presidency is not a job for women.

“My daughter, inuudyok naman nila. Sabi ko my daughter is not running. I have told Inday not to run kasi naawa ako sa dadaanan niya na dinaanan ko,” Duterte said at the the inauguration of the Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3.

He added, "Hindi ito pambabae. Alam mo, the emotional set-up of a woman and a man is totally different. Maging gago ka dito. That is the sad story.”

Duterte’s statement comes after Sara topped the list of preferred presidential candidates for 2022 in a Pulse Asia survey released last month.

In a statement sent to ABS-CBN News, Sara said he told his father last week that she does not intend to run for president next year.

Sara added, “"He also said he did not want me to run but nothing about gender was discussed.”

Earlier this month, Sara said she asked survey firms to remove her name from future 2022 presidential election polls. The election is “farthest from the minds of many Filipinos” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Sara said in her statement.

The Philippines had two women presidents in the past—namely, Cory Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

A study published August last year suggests that women-led countries fared better in terms of handling the coronavirus crisis.

Duterte has a long list of sexist, lewd and misogynistic pronouncements and rape jokes that have incurred the ire of women around the world.

His rambling address to the nation on Monday nights since the pandemic began are filled with expletives and non-sequiturs, and insinuations about Vice President Leni Robredo.

In November 2020, appearing angry that Robredo was being praised on social media for her quick response to Typhoon Ulysses disaster areas, Duterte spent the first 20 minutes of his televised address attacking her.

"Ikaw, noong gabi, anong oras ka umuwi? Isang bahay ka lang ba, dalawang bahay? Nagtatanong lang ako. Kay congressman ka. Kaninong bahay ka natagalan?" he said.

Also in November, after surveying the typhoon devastation, he and other government officials joked about being “undersexed” and that “women age men.”

In a gathering of women in the military and police in 2019, he called women “puta” or bitches—in front of the very women the event was honoring.

He also called them “crazy” and said, “You know you women are depriving me of my freedom of expression. You criticise every sentence or word I say, that is my freedom to express myself.”

Indeed he expressed his thoughts on rape freely in April 2016 as a presidential candidate. Talking about the gang rape and murder of an Australian missionary in Davao, he said he should have been first in line because he was the mayor.

“I looked at her face – son of a bitch – what a waste. What came to mind was, they raped her, they lined up," he said. "I was angry because she was raped, that's one thing … but she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste."

The incident caused not just a diplomatic fracas, but also anger in the Philippines and Australia, and around the world. In what seemed like an imitation of Duterte, his supporters besieged the Australian Embassay Facebook page with expletives and taunts.