BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental — Senator Paolo Benigno Aquino said on Thursday, that President Rodrigo Duterte’s introduction of former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as the next vice president, to the Filipino community in Beijing, China, should he win his electoral protest against Vice President Leni Robredo, was “troubling” and a “call for action.”

“Personally as somebody who supported the Vice President (Leni Robredo) it’s very troubling for me that that is the way he introduced him (Marcos),” the senator, popularly called Bam Aquino, said.

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“I think this region (Negros Island Region) which supported the Vice President greatly, I think it’s also very troubling for us if that’s the way he was introduced. I don’t know, maybe they will say again that President Duterte was just joking,” he said.

Aquino said the recount of votes in the vice presidential race must be watched closely to prevent the victory being stolen from Robredo.

“I think it’s a call for all of us to be vigilant. In fact it seems people have forgotten that there is a protest but maybe that’s a call to action to us to look at it more thoroughly,” he said.

Asked how he would rate the President’s performance in his first 100 days, Aquino admitted that the Duterte administration has started implementing a lot of reforms. But he said Duterte’s war of drugs has been marred by allegations of extrajudicial killings or vigilante attacks. He added that the country’s foreign policy has become muddled.

“If you look at a number of the departments, you would say that a lot of things have happened. But I think what we see in our newspapers are really, the more popular issues that are also quite troubling considering the numerous vigilante killings, (and) our foreign policy that is not that clear,” he said. SFM

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