Amid continued calls for her to seek reelection, Cebu Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale said she has made up her mind to retire from politics in 2019.
Magpale reiterated that it is time for her to rest due to her age, while giving others a chance to lead the Cebu provincial government.
“Ug mo change atong edad; dili man (If my age will change; but it will not),” the 76-year-old Magpale joked during a press conference last Thursday, June 21, when asked to respond to calls for her to reconsider her decision to retire from politics.
She said there are many younger politicians who are more than capable of taking on the responsibilities of a vice governor.
Magpale said that while she would be willing to help Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III find his running mate for the midterm elections in May next year, the matter should be decided by the governor himself.
She said she would also do what she could to help him in the campaign, up to “what is physically doable.”
Magpale, who has been in politics for about 32 years and was Davide’s runningmate in the 2013 and 2016 elections, said she had thought of retiring since 2010, the year her husband, Justice Arsenio Magpale of the Court of Appeals, died.
Magpale is a member of the Durano political clan and had been dominating the political races first as a Provincial Board Member representing the fifth district, the bailiwick of the Durano family, and later as a vice governor.
She was the number one PB member when then Vice Gov. Gregorio Sanchez Jr. died of lung cancer in 2011, and she then took over the post he left behind.
A year later, she became the acting governor of Cebu when then Gov. Gwendolyn “Gwen” Garcia was ordered suspended for six months by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
“God decided for me,” she said, referring to the posts she had assumed by way of succession.
“I think I have given my best and I already spend the best years of my life (in politics)… It was really fulfilling,” she added.
Magpale is currently the acting governor of Cebu (from June 20 to July 2) while Davide is on vacation.
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