| Elizabeth Zimmerman | |
| Birth Name: | Elizabeth Abellana Zimmerman[1] |
| Birth Date: | 14 April 1948 |
| Birth Place: | Davao City, Davao, Philippines |
| Party: | Independent (2001) |
| Education: | Ateneo de Davao University |
| Children: | Paolo Sara Sebastian |
Elizabeth Abellana Zimmerman[2] (born April 14, 1948) is the former wife of Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th President of the Philippines, and the mother of incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte.
Elizabeth Abellana Zimmerman was born on 14 April 1948 in Davao City the then-Province of Davao.[3] Her parents are from Hilongos, Leyte and Tuburan, Cebu.[4] She attended the Ateneo de Davao and subsequently worked as a flight stewardess for Philippine Airlines.[5]
Rodrigo Duterte and the Zimmerman family's oral history claim that she is of patrilineal Jewish descent,[6] [7] with her father having fled to the Philippines from Nazi Germany.[8] However, the family's DNA result showed a non-Jewish ethnicity.[9]
Zimmerman ran for city councilor of Davao City in 2001 but lost.[2] She joined the Biyaheng DU30 bus caravan which went around the Visayas and Mindanao, in support of her former husband's presidential bid in 2016.[2] [10]
Zimmerman was married to Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte (who later became the President of the Philippines) for over 25 years. She has three children with him, named Paolo, Sara and Baste. She filed for a civil annulment in 1998, and for a few months, lived with her brother in Metro Manila, occasionally visiting Davao City since her children were still studying there. Duterte has admitted that Zimmerman had left him after she caught him in adultery. The civil annulment was granted in 2000.[5] After the annulment, Zimmerman remained friends with her former husband. She chose to continue using "Duterte" as part of her surname despite the annulment, saying that her marriage with Duterte has never been declared null by the Catholic Church.[2] She has eleven grandchildren: five from her son Paolo, three from her daughter Sara, and three from youngest son, Baste. She also has two great-grandchildren.
In August 2015, Zimmerman was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer,[11] but was declared fully recovered in October 2016. Her recovery then led to her becoming a breast cancer advocate. “Because God gave me a second chance in life," she said in an interview, "I should advocate for this very noble cause, to become a source of awareness, support and hope to others who are suffering the same as I did.”[12]