Members of the opposition are calling on Vice President Sara Duterte to resign from her post as Department of Education (DepEd) secretary after the recent verbal tussle between her family and President Marcos.
(From left) Former vice presidential spokesperson Barry Gutierrez, Vice President Sara Duterte, and former senator Antonio Trillanes IV. (OVP/ MANILA BULLETIN)
In separate posts on X (formerly Twitter), former vice presidential spokesman and lawmaker Barry Gutierrez and former senator Antonio Trillanes IV urged the official to resign as DepEd chief.
“Pagkatapos ng kaguluhan nung Linggo, minura at ininsulto na ng tatay at mga kapatid mo, tapos kapit-tuko ka pa rin as DepEd Secretary? Konting hiya naman. Magresign ka na as DepEd Secretary, please. #SaraResign (After the chaos last Sunday, your father and brother cursed [the President], but you’re still staying as DepEd Secretary? Have a little shame. Resign as DepEd Secretary, please),” the former senator wrote.
Gutierrez, the ex-spokesman of former vice president Leni Robredo, also chimed in.
“Kapatid mo pinagreresign na ang Presidente. Tatay mo pinagbintangan siya na nasa listahan daw ng PDEA. Mga alyado niyo banat na ng banat (Your brother is asking the President to resign. Your father accused him of being in the PDEA list. Your allies keep on attacking),” he said.
“Hindi ka tumututol. Delicadeza na lang na dapat umalis ka na sa Cabinet diba? Hirap siguro talagang bumitaw sa puwesto kung nakikinabang (You did not oppose. If you have delicadeza, you will leave the Cabinet, right? Maybe it’s really hard to leave a position when you’re benefiting),” he added.
With the #SaraResign trending on social media, Duterte on Monday, Jan. 29, maintained she will keep her position as DepEd chief until Marcos says so.
“Sa kabila ng lahat, hindi ako kailanman panghihinaan ng loob (Despite all these, I will never be discouraged). I will stay true to my work at the Department of Education, unless the President says otherwise,” she said.
The Manila Bulletin tried to get comments from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) regarding these latest calls to resign, but it has yet to reply as of posting.
The remarks against Duterte came after Sunday’s events—the “Bagong Pilipinas” kickoff rally at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila headed by Marcos and the anti-People’s Initiative (PI) for Charter Change (Cha-cha) prayer rally in Davao City organized by the Duterte family, most notably its patriarch, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, which she both attended.
At the “Bagong Pilipinas” rally, she thanked DepEd personnel for their hard work and expressed commitment to the Marcos administration’s eight-point socioeconomic agenda. She flew immediately to her hometown Davao City and did not meet Marcos at the Manila event, then spoke on stage at the prayer rally to thank Davaoeños for supporting her and her family.
But it was her younger brother, Baste, and father, Rodrigo, who lambasted Marcos and pointed at First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez as the ones behind the PI initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution.
Baste asked Marcos to resign last Sunday in Davao City, and called him lazy and lacking compassion. The former president, during the evening’s prayer rally, called Marcos “bangag (high on drugs)” and claimed he was on the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s (PDEA) narco list.
This has since been denied by PDEA.
As a rebuttal, the President hit back at his predecessor and said it was the highly addictive synthetic opioid fentanyl that was causing the eldest Duterte to say things.