‘I was deceived,’ Marcos says of VP Sara’s ‘friendship’ 

President Marcos and Sara Duterte

VIENTIANE, LAOS—President Marcos on Friday said he may have been “deceived” by Vice President Sara Duterte, after the latter publicly denied ever being friends with him despite the both of them sailing through the 2022 elections as the so-called “Uniteam.”

“I don’t know anymore. I’m not quite sure I understand. I’m a little dismayed that she doesn’t think that we are friends. I always thought that we were. But maybe I was deceived,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit here.

This was the first time Mr. Marcos reacted to Duterte’s comment on Sept. 18, when she said she was “never friends with him to begin with … we only knew each other because we were running mates. [We] only got to talking during the campaign and because of work.”

“My real friend is Sen. Imee Marcos, whom I have known since 2012,” she said. “When I tendered my resignation, that was the last time I have ever talked to him.”

Position of trust

Before he left for the Asean summit, Mr. Marcos named Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla and Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III as the country’s caretakers, shutting out the Vice President from the role for the first time since he assumed office in 2022.

Mr. Marcos said he did not name Duterte caretaker simply because “she’s not part of the administration anymore.”

“She’s still the Vice President, but she’s not part of the administration anymore,” he said. “She’s still the Vice President, but she left the administration, [she’s] not part of the day-to-day running that we’re doing so it would be unfair to ask her and to impose this duty on her since it’s not part of her duty now.”

Money and accountability

Duterte’s beef with the President stemmed from questions over the propriety of confidential and intelligence funds for the education secretary when it was outside the mandate of the Department of Education.

A scandal also emerged after the Commission on Audit took the Vice President to task for disbursing P125 million over 11 to 19 days in 2022.

Duterte blamed Speaker Martin Romualdez, whom the Vice President and Senator Marcos accused of cutting her budget because of the speaker’s supposed aspiration for the presidency.

The Vice President has since resigned as education secretary and declared herself as the leader of the opposition.