Justice Secretary Guevarra appointed officer in charge of nat’l gov’t

UNPRECEDENTED Before flying to Israel and Jordan, President Duterte named Menardo Guevarra caretaker of the national government. This marked the first time a justice secretary was tapped to run the government in the President’s absence. MALACAÑANG PHOTO

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison sees President Duterte’s designation of a caretaker to run the government while he is visiting Israel and Jordan as an inclination toward fascist dictatorship.

In a statement posted on Saturday on his website (josemariasison.org), Sison claimed that instead of allowing the constitutional successor, Vice President Leni Robredo, to serve as caretaker, President Duterte “created a caretaker committee headed by Inday Sara (the President’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte) to rule the country.”

Wrong information

Sison’s information was wrong: President Duterte designated Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra as caretaker of the national government, as Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, the usual caretaker when he is out of the country, is traveling with him this time.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Sunday that it was the first time that a justice secretary was chosen to run the government in the absence of the President.

“It’s unprecedented. It’s the first time that the secretary of justice was named as the caretaker. The officer in charge is the justice secretary, Menardo Guevarra,” Roque told reporters at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, prior to the departure of the President on an 11-hour flight to Tel Aviv.

Roque explained that the choice of caretaker depended on who had the President’s trust and confidence.

Under the Constitution, the Vice President takes over only when the President dies, he said.

“It doesn’t say that the Vice President will be the officer in charge when the President goes abroad. There’s no entitlement,” he added.

The Palace has not announced a caretaker committee, much less one that includes Mayor Duterte.

Sison, however, referred to such a committee in a Facebook post last month, in which he claimed President Duterte had been taken ill and slipped into a coma, only for the President to turn up in Cebu City two days later to address a meeting of Visayan mayors and challenge him to come home if he was sick, promising to make room for him in the national penitentiary.

Joining the chief executive in his official visit to Israel are Cabinet officials and 150 businessmen.

‘One more expensive tour’

President Duterte is visiting Israel from Sunday to Wednesday on the invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Wednesday, he flies to Amman for a four-day visit to Jordan on the invitation of King Abdullah II.

The President is expected to return to the Philippines through Davao City, his hometown, on Sunday.

Sison described President Duterte’s trip as “one more expensive tour cum medical treatment in Israel.”

Commenting on the President’s claim that Robredo was incompetent to lead the country, Sison said, “Leni Robredo is far more intelligent, honest and competent than a Duterte who has gone out of his mind by worshiping and emulating the fascist dictatorship and corruption of Marcos.”

Still capable of mischief

Although burned by the false information about the President falling into a coma, Sison still believed President Duterte was sick.

“Duterte may be seriously sick physically and mentally. But he can still walk and give orders to his minions. While still alive, he is capable of doing a lot of malicious mischief and inflicting social disaster on the Filipino people,” he said.

“He and his coconspirators are still hell-bent on carrying out a discernibly four-stage plot of establishing a fascist dictatorship a la Marcos and imposing it on the people,” he said.

President Duterte, he claimed, has spoken about the four-stage plot through his pronouncements on the possibility of declaring martial law nationwide, setting up a revolutionary government, “effective control of the results of the May 2019 elections to ensure Charter change through the needed majority in both houses of Congress,” and a shift to federalism.

Sison described the proposed shift to federalism as a “facade for fascist dictatorship.”

“Duterte and his coconspirators are clever and brutal enough to plot and carry out their evil plan. But time and circumstances are against them,” Sison said, citing the growing unrest over the President’s strongman tactics as well as the “rapid deterioration of the economy.”