Palace says of Rody’s martial law declaration warning
MALACAÑANG yesterday dismissed statements that President Marcos Jr is poised to declare martial law before his term ends in 2028 so he will remain in power, just like what his father, the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr., did in 1972.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday said declaring martial law will guarantee a no-election scenario that will pave the way for Marcos’ continued stay in Malacañang.
“Mr. Marcos is veering towards a dictatorship. I bet that he will not step down (after his term in 2028). This will be just like his father’s time; he will impose martial law just like what his father did. That will put our country in chaos. If there is martial law, there will be no elections,” Duterte said in a mix of Visayan and English during a political rally on Saturday night in Mandaue City.
The “Cebu People’s Indignation Rally” was organized by the Hakbang ng Maisug-Cebu to protest the impeachment of Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte who quit the Marcos Cabinet in June last year.
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said the elder Duterte’s statements are just products of his wild imagination.
“We treat the former president’s baseless and ridiculous statements in the same way that Filipinos are dismissive of them: a tall tale from a man prone to lying and to inventing hoaxes. This hoax is another `budol’ (trick) emerging from a one-man fake-news factory,” Bersamin said in a statement.
Duterte during the rally also told the police and the military to make the right decision and not be influenced by the whims of an individual who has “ambitions.”
He made a similar call last year, asking the military and the police to intervene to “protect the Constitution” amid a “fracture” in government.
The military at that time said it remains united and loyal to the Constitution while the police said it will uphold the Charter and as it respects duly-constituted authorities.
The Armed Forces yesterday reiterated it is a professional organization.
AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said the AFP has earned the trust and confidence of the Filipino people, citing results of recent surveys.
“We don’t want that trust broken,” she said.
“We will continue to perform our mandate, especially during the elections (in May). We will make sure that the directive of our commander-in-chief, our President, is accomplished and that is to ensure peaceful, credible, and orderly elections,” she added.
Marcos, in an interview with ABC news in March last year, said he has “no impulses to authoritarianism whatsoever … We are making, hoping to make some changes to (the Charter). But no, I have not felt any tug or temptation to make it a more authoritarian system.” He also said his father was forced to declare martial law due to the worsening peace and order in the country that time.
Bersamin, in his statement yesterday, said Malacañang is consistent in upholding the Constitution “in adhering to the rule of law and in respecting the rights of the people,” and a martial law declaration is far-fetched.
He took a swipe at the Duterte administration for its “oppressive ways.”
“We will not backslide into the oppressive ways of the previous administration, when critics were jailed upon trumped-up charges and when kill orders were publicly issued with glee and obeyed blindly. It is the leader of that troubled past who is depicting us as veering toward a system where anyone can be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, as many had been on his mere say-so as a tyrant who did not respect that rights of the people,” he added.
Also in his speech in the indignation rally, Duterte said the Marcos administration lacks transparency when it sold gold reserves last year, saying the Filipino people were not informed as to where and how much the gold reserves were sold.
“They don’t bother to answer and they don’t really bother to give a statement to the Filipino people,” he said. – With Victor Reyes
