President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is set to serve as the 17th president of the Philippines, while his running mate Vice President-elect Sara Duterte is the incoming 15th vice president of the Philippines.
But why the numerical gap between the two? The answer is rather simpel; some presidents did not have vice presidents when they were in office.
Three former Philippine presidents: Emilio Aguinaldo (1899-1901), Jose Laurel (1943-1945), and Sergio Osmena (1944-1946) did not have vice presidents during their respective tenures.
Aguinaldo did not have a vice president as the 1899 Malolos Constitution did bit provide for the creation of an Office of the Vice President (OVP).
In the case of Laurel–the president of the puppet government during the Japanese occupation–the 1943 Constitution drafted under Japanese rule did not mandate the creation of an OVP.
Osmena–who was vice president to the first Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon (1935-1944)--eventually became the second president of the Commonwealth government. He was exiled following the Japanese occupation of the country, hence the term overlap with Laurel.
Osmena took over Quezon's presidency after the latter died of tuberculosis while in office. The 1935 Constitution adopted by the Commonwealth did not mandate the selection of a vice president if the present office holder had been promoted to president.
Meanwhile, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010) saw two vice presidents during her term in office: Teofisto Guingona (2001-2004) and Noli De Castro (2004-2010).
After the ouster of President Joseph Estrada (1998-2001) following EDSA II in 2001, Estrada’s vice president, Arroyo, took over the presidency from him and subsequently appointed Guingona as both vice president and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) secretary.
Before his appointment as the second highest official of the land, Guingona was the Senate Minority Leader during the 11th Congress.
Following her initial run in the Palace from 2001 to 2004, Arroyo won a mandate as president in the May 2004 polls while broadcast journalist De Castro was elected as her vice president.