Vice President Sara Duterte | PHOTO: Official facebook page of Inday Sara Duterte
MANILA, Philippines — Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua on Thursday called out Vice President Sara Duterte for allegedly joking about appointing herself as a “designated survivor,” saying it makes light of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s security.
“I appreciate Vice President Sara Duterte’s humor when she said, ‘I am appointing myself as the designated survivor’ when she said she is not attending the joint session of Congress for the third SONA of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.,” Chua said.
“However, given current political tensions, such a joke is not in good taste because the security of the President of the Philippines is not a joking or laughing matter. Great care is taken to ensure the security of the President, especially during the Sona,” he added.
Chua said that on a serious note, Duterte does not have the power to appoint herself as a designated survivor because the 1987 Constitution states the fixed line of succession in case of a sitting president’s death or permanent disability.
“To be specific, the two paragraphs of Section 8 of Article VII of the Constitution provide for the succession to the President and to the Acting President. The second paragraph gives Congress the mandate to produce an enabling law for the Acting President situation,” he added.
Article VII, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution 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.”
If both the President and the Vice President die or become permanently disabled, 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’
Earlier, House of Representatives Secretary General Reginald Velasco said that Duterte may have been joking only as there is no designated survivor in the country.
However, 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.
Marcos and Duterte ran as tandem in the 2022 national elections, but observers believe the ties have been severed with tensions between their families rising.
Last April, First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos 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 alliance formed to support Marcos and Duterte.
READ: Sara Duterte resigns as DepEd secretary, says Palace