PRESIDENT Duterte may step down if defeated vice presidential candidate and former Sen. Ferdinand R. “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. wins his electoral protest against Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo, according to Malacañan Palace.
Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque Jr. said in a briefing on Thursday that the President’s statement on Tuesday was a “real statement of exasperation and a real genuine wish to step down if there’s a better leader.”
“And he has said that he thinks Senator Bongbong Marcos is one of the better qualified leaders to succeed him. If there’s a development and he will win the protest and he becomes vice president, yes, he will make true his word,” Roque added.
He was referring to remarks made by Duterte on Tuesday night during a dinner with Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, where the President said he prefers the likes of Marcos and Sen. Francis G. Escudero to succeed him as he believes that Vice President Robredo can’t do the job.
Robredo is facing an electoral protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal following Marcos’s accusation that the vice president cheated him in 2016 vice presidential election.
Marcos is the son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., who ruled for nearly two decades, nine years of which was under martial law.
Roque said the President is “worried” that if the constitutional succession will be followed, then the successor may not be qualified.
According to the 1987 Constitution, the Vice President shall become the President in case of death, permanent disability, removal from office or resignation of the President.
Nevertheless, Roque stressed that the President has no plans of resigning and even took a swipe at one of Robredo’s lawyers.
“As of now, he remains. So Barry Gutierrez, sorry. He remains president,” he said.
In a separate speech on Tuesday night in a gathering of diplomats and business leaders, including Manny V. Pangilinan, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala and Lucio Tan in Malacañang, Duterte said he was thinking of resigning because he is “tired.”
In July Malacañang said the President will be stepping down as early as 2019 once the Constitution was ratified through a plebiscite and a transition leader has been elected.
At that time, Roque said among the reasons the President made the request to the President’s Consultative Committee to change the transitory provisions is that the President is “tired.”
Image credits: Roy Domingo