Vice President Sara Duterte drew a line on Friday, June 12, between her open political opposition to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and any unconstitutional bid to remove him from office, saying her sworn duties as second-highest official rule out the latter.
Speaking in Davao City during the country’s 128th Independence Day commemoration, she pointed to the obligations she accepted on taking office. “I am the constitutional successor; I am the next in line according to our Constitution. And I took an oath when I assumed the Office of the Vice President and stated there that I will preserve and defend the Constitution,” she said.
She was equally direct in saying she had no interest in inheriting the presidency through any shortcut. “So, it is not in my hands to implement extra-constitutional means to overthrow the current administration. And I don’t like that either. I don’t want to take over Bongbong Marcos’ position. I want people to see until the end how shameless BBM is,” Duterte said.
Much of her Independence Day address turned on corruption, which she framed as its own form of lost sovereignty. “Our freedom, our sovereignty is not only lost to foreign invaders. We don’t only lose it from foreign invaders. We also lose it when the high officials of our government, including the President, is like a syndicate in stealing the people’s money. Every peso that is stolen is a loss of dignity for everyone,” she said.
She tied each diverted peso to a concrete public failure. “Every peso stolen from the people’s treasury steals a child’s freedom from hunger. It steals a student’s freedom from illiteracy or substandard education. It steals a patient’s freedom to obtain quality health care. It steals a worker’s freedom to earn a decent living. Every ghost project is a classroom never built. Every corrupt contract is a road that was never built for farmers to bring their produce to the market,” Duterte said, adding that sovereignty erodes whenever public service is run as a private enterprise.
The Palace, for its part, was working to tamp down separate rumors of a destabilization attempt timed to the holiday. Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro responded to a social media post by journalist Ramon Tulfo, who claimed the Philippine National Police had picked up intelligence about a planned assault on Malacañang led by a religious sect. Castro said no such plan involving the Vice President’s supporters had been confirmed.
Castro nonetheless accused Duterte of long harboring ambitions to unseat Marcos and pinned destabilization efforts on the Vice President’s camp. She called on Duterte to be “real” rather than a hypocrite, citing remarks she attributed to the Vice President abroad. “She has always wanted to oust the President from office, and she said this in a speech in the Netherlands on July 19, 2025, that ‘we all want to oust BBM from office,'” Castro said in a Viber message to reporters, adding: “She can’t deny she said it. Don’t be ‘plastic’ and a hypocrite.”
Officials at Malacañang brushed aside the holiday plot talk while cautioning the public against what they described as “forces of darkness” trying to stir unrest.
The exchange unfolds as Duterte heads toward an impeachment trial over corruption allegations, with senators having set proceedings to begin on July 6 once pretrial requirements and summons are settled.
