Vice President Sara Duterte | PHOTO: Official Facebook apge of Inday Sara Duterte
MANILA, Philippines — House of Representatives Secretary General Reginald Velasco believes Vice President Sara Duterte may just be joking when she talked about appointing herself as a “designated survivor” because there is no such thing in the country.
Velasco on Thursday was asked about Duterte’s statement that she will be skipping the third State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on July 22.
“I think she is just joking … because we do not have such thing as a designated survivor. In the US, there is. You have seen the series on US TV, they have a designated survivor — a cabinet official, a cabinet secretary will not be attending the Sona and the person is secluded,” Velasco said in Filipino in an interview with select reporters.
“And then whatever happens to the president and the immediate successors—because in the US Sona, like us, the vice president is there who’s the head of the Senate, and then the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the speaker of the House, so the immediate successors are all attending the [Sona] that is why they the so-called designated survivor,” he added.
Article VII of the 1987 Constitution explicitly states the line of succession in case a sitting president dies or becomes permanently disabled.
Section 7 states that the Vice President will succeed the President if “at the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died or shall have become permanently disabled.” The Vice President will also be President to serve the unexpired term of the President “in case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation.”
Suppose the President and the Vice President die or become permanently disabled. In that case, the Senate President or, in his or her inability, the Speaker of the House will act as President until candidates for the vacant spots have been elected and deemed qualified.
Bills on designated successor have been filed in Congress, but these have not been enacted.
READ: Lacson pushes for passage of bill naming President’s ‘designated survivor’
Several netizens questioned whether Duterte’s statement was a veiled threat because it seemed to imply that something wrong might happen to the country’s leaders who would attend the Sona.
Not a confirmation
For Velasco, Duterte’s statement does not count as a confirmation of her attendance or absence in the Sona as it was not a reply to the House-issued letter.
“Well as of now we have not yet received a formal confirmation, a letter from the Office of the Vice President or at least an official of the Office of the Vice President telling us that the Vice President wouldn’t come or will not come to the Sona,” he said.
“So until we receive that confirmation, we assume that she is still going,” he added.
Velasco earlier said an inter-agency panel would decide on the seating arrangements for the Sona, after being asked what would be the seating plan given the changes in the political landscape due to the Marcos-Duterte rift.
READ: Will VP Duterte, FL Marcos be Sona seatmates again? Panel to decide
In past Sonas, First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and the Vice President were seen seated beside each other. But last April, the First Lady admitted snubbing the Vice President after she attended prayer rallies where President Marcos was called a “drug addict” by former President Rodrigo Duterte, the Vice President’s father.
Last June 19, the Vice President resigned from her post as Education Secretary and other roles in the Marcos cabinet — a move seen by many as the formal dissolution of the Uniteam, the campaign tandem of Marcos and Duterte.
READ: Sara Duterte resigns as DepEd secretary, says Palace