UNITEAM no more.
Vice President Sara Duterte’s resignation from the Marcos Jr. Cabinet marks the end of her alliance with the President and the start of an open war between their camps, opposition lawmakers said yesterday.
“Duterte’s departure from a prime position in the President’s Cabinet ends with finality the increasingly tenuous partisan relations between the Duterte and Marcos political power blocs. This terminates absolutely the UniTeam,” Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, a leader of the opposition, said in a statement after the Vice President announced her resignation as Education secretary and co-chairperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
The President and the Vice President ran under the UniTeam ticket in the 2022 national elections under a platform of unity.
Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT), a member of the militant Makabayan bloc at the House, said Duterte’s resignation from the Marcos Cabinet “also marks the open war between the former allies and the upcoming escalation of hostilities between the two camps.”
Castro’s fellow Makabayan bloc member, Rep. Arlene Brosas (PL, Gabriela), said the Vice President’s resignation from the Cabinet “is definitely a political move in preparation for the 2025 elections to set the stage for a potential power struggle between the Duterte and Marcos factions.”
“While there may be deepening cracks in the perceived “unity” between President Marcos Jr. and Vice President Duterte, we must remain vigilant. They remain united in pushing anti-people policies and governance that favor only their dynastic interests at the expense of the Filipino people,” Brosas said.
INEVITABLE
Senate President Francis Escudero the resignation was “inevitable” from the time Sara’s father and siblings started to attack President Marcos.
“Its inevitability became more pronounced when she was already silent and not expressing her support on certain policy issues such as the West Philippine Sea, the Bagong Pilipinas hymn, the Quiboloy cases and attempted arrest, etc.,” Escudero said.
“As the Vice President, she has every right to have policy differences with the President and I believe that people love and respect her precisely for that… for having and fighting for what she believes in and for her own beliefs. I wish her well in this, her new journey as she continues to serve our people as our Vice President,” he added.
The Marcos-Duterte alliance was always expected to collapse, but analysts were surprised by how soon the gloves came off.
Sara’s brother, the mayor of Davao city, has called for Marcos’ resignation and Sara did not object to the call.
“It is the break we have all been waiting for,” Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, said of the Vice President’s decision to step down from her Cabinet post.
Franco said Sara Duterte, who continues to enjoy high trust ratings based on independent opinion polls, would now have more leeway to criticize Marcos’ policies
RESIGNATION CALLS
The House Makabayan bloc has long been calling for the Vice President’s resignation from the Cabinet, ever since her father, Marcos’ predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, began attacking the administration over various issues, including Charter change and Congress’ move to strip the Office of the President of its confidential and intelligence funds.
Last April, Manila Rep. Joe Chua, an administration lawmaker, said the Vice President should resign because it was time for her to be “held accountable” for her family’s actions and for “pretending to be a full partner of the President.”
“Nearly two years after assumption to the Office of the Vice President, it is time for accountability for VP Sara Duterte and the Duterte family. The Vice President should show some decency by resigning from her DepEd post at the very least,” Chua said then. “Her family unleashed a barrage of insults and attacks directly to the President and yet she does nothing and is still enjoying the perks of being part of the official family.”
Administration lawmakers have been assailing the Duterte camp for holding “prayer-rallies” which, they said, are being used as venues to malign the President and his administration.
The elder Duterte is being investigated by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) for “crimes against humanity” because of the thousands killed under his bloody war on drugs.
A major blow to the Marcos-Duterte relationship came late last year when Marcos said the government was considering rejoining the ICC, nearly five years after Rodrigo had withdrawn membership over objections to a bid by the court to investigate a bloody anti-narcotics campaign under him.
Marcos, since coming to power in 2022, has reversed Rodrigo Duterte’s pro-China stance and pivoted back to the United States, granting Washington greater access to Philippine bases amid China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and near Taiwan.
He also brought to the fore a 2016 arbitral ruling, fortifying Manila’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which former president Duterte had largely set aside.
First Lady Louise “Liza” Marcos, in an interview last April, disclosed her relationship with the Vice President has soured after the younger Duterte attended the rally where her father accused the Chief Executive of being a drug addict.
However, despite the rift between the Marcos and Duterte camps, Speaker Martin Romualdez has said the administration is not closing its doors on the possibility of forging an alliance with the Dutertes’ political parties for the 2025 midterm elections.
The Speaker made the statement after the ruling party Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) formalized its an alliance with Marcos’ Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) last May.
Earlier this month, administration lawmakers said the presence of 167 lawmakers, including Duterte ally Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo, in the Bagong Pilipinas Serbisyo Fair (BPSF) held in Tagum City, Davao del Norte last June 6 was proof that the UniTeam still stands.
‘A LIABILITY’
Lagman said he was hoping that the younger Duterte’s resignation from the Department of Education will “lead to the solution of the alarming crisis in Philippine education.”
“No less than Vice President Duterte herself said that her resignation is ‘dala ng tunay na malasakit para sa ating mga guro at kabataang Pilipino’ (due to my genuine concern for our teachers and the Filipino youth), which means that her incumbency was a liability to teachers and students,” he said.
Lagman said he was also hoping that the Vice President’s replacement in the DepEd “will come from the ranks of experienced and dedicated educators who can efficiently steer and professionally manage the educational system of the country.”
2 YEARS WASTED
Castro, an educator by profession, said in Filipino, “Finally, VP Sara resigned from the DepEd, something she should have done sooner so that the position will be given to someone from the education sector who really knows what he or she is doing.”
“More than two years have been wasted. It could have been used to address the education crisis in the country and the call for more benefits and increased salaries for teachers and education support personnel,” she added.
On Sara’s resignation from the NTF-ELCAC, Castro said the Makabayan bloc is hoping that “red-tagging agency would also be abolished.”
“It is nothing but an apparatus of the state to violate human rights and spread fake news,” she said.
Brosas, for her part, said that from the very start, the Vice President “had no real intention of addressing the crisis in our education system.”
“Her controversial appointment reeked of traditional political maneuverings rather than a sincere commitment to improve our schools and protect our teachers and students.
Moreover, her resignation highlights the urgent need to appoint a genuine public servant who will prioritize uplifting the long-neglected education sector,” she said. — With Raymond Africa and Reuters
