Palace: Duterte is proof not all Marcos-appointed execs are competent
MANILA, Philippines — For the first time in years, Malacañang has agreed with a statement of Vice President Sara Duterte.
According to Palace press officer Claire Castro, Duterte was right in claiming that not every one that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appointed to be part of his cabinet was competent — and she was the proof.
“It seems she has now hit the mark. Because when she was appointed as Secretary of DepEd (Department of Education), she was trusted by the president. But in the end, the vice president would later admit that she had no knowledge at all about being DepEd secretary,” Castro said in a press briefing on Wednesday.
“So that is true. Not all secretaries who are appointed because of the president’s trust and belief in them turn out to be truly capable,” she added.
READ: Sara Duterte’s DepEd leadership is a ‘complete failure’ – Palace
Castro brought up the issues of misuse of funds of Duterte during her two-year stint as education secretary.
“And with the ghost students, ghost vouchers, ghost food packs, ghost laptops, ghost school materials—all these ghosts under the vice president when she was DepEd secretary—she should not smear them onto the president,” she recalled.
“These messes are now being swept away and cleaned up by … Secretary Sonny Angara,” she said.
READ: House justice panel to tackle Sara Duterte impeachment by March 2
In an interview over the weekend on SMNI, Dutere claimed that the “messy” governance of Marcos extended to government agencies.
“You can see that governance now seems messy because it’s the same in some departments. It would have been fine if all the secretaries were competent,” she said.
Duterte served as education secretary from June 2022 to June 2024.
Back then, she had said she resigned “out of genuine concern for our teachers and the Filipino youth,” without specifying a reason.
When she announced her bid for the 2028 presidency last week, the vice president said she stepped down from her cabinet position because of the massive corruption in the Marcos administration.
The Palace, however, denied this statement.
The misuse of public funds during her term as DepEd chief was among the bases for the impeachment complaints filed against Duterte before the House of Representatives both last year, and the fresh complaints this year.
The four impeachment complaints this year will be tackled by the House committee on justice starting on March 2, to determine if these are sufficient in form and substance. /apl
