On All Saints’ Day, as in the weeks and days before it, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declined to comment on his former friend (or was she ever a friend at all?) Vice President Sara Duterte’s tirade on the remains of his father, the former president and late dictator.
Following a mass held at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery), where the first president Marcos is buried, Marcos Jr. was asked for comment on Duterte’s threat (Or joke? It’s hard to tell when it comes to the Dutertes) that she’d throw his father’s remains to the West Philippine Sea following the political rift between the two clans.
To recall, this is what Duterte, herself the child of a strongman, said during an hours-long press conference where she ranted and rambled on about the erstwhile Marcos-Duterte alliance, favors the President did not give her, and about how Marcos Jr. did not know how to do his job: “Sinabihan ko talaga si Senator Imee (Marcos). Sabi ko sa kanya, kung hindi kayo tumigil, huhukayin ko yung tatay ninyo, itatapon ko siya sa West Philippine Sea.”
(I told Senator Imee Marcos that if they do not stop, I’ll excavate their father and throw his remains into the West Philippine Sea.)
That press conference was apparently triggered by Marcos saying he might have been “deceived” because he thought the former Davao mayor was a friend.
So, what was Marcos’ response to requests for comment, over two weeks after Duterte’s latest tirades?
“I’d rather not. Thank you,” said the President, as supporters also gathered at the cemetery were chanting his initials “BBM.”
This would not be the first time for the President to refuse to make a comment — or even a reaction to — his 2022 partner’s tirades.
When asked on October 22, on the sidelines of a Philippine Coast Guard event, to react to Duterte’s claim that he did not know how to be president, Marcos only smirked at media before walking away towards his vehicle.
Marcos and Duterte ran in 2022 under Uniteam, a coalition that brought together not only the formidable clans from Nothern Luzon and Mindanao, but other clans and parties that made up most of the country’s political elite.
The two swept the 2022 elections, with Marcos becoming the first majority-elected president since the ouster of his father in 1986.
But no longer does unity nor that team exist. Duterte resigned as education secretary in June 2024, and the Vice President has slowly — sometimes sloppily — tried to paint herself as an opposition figure to a still popular President Marcos.
But once the day to honor the dead is over, before the Christmas and New Year holiday rush, will Vice President Duterte get what she’s seemingly angling for: a reaction from the President? – Rappler.com
