President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (Left),Vice President Sara Duterte (MANILA BULLETIN, Facebook)

Davao del Norte 1st district Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez---known to be a close ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte--has advised President Marcos to make the ultimate "sacrifice" by turning over the reins of the country to Vice President Sara Duterte. 

Alvarez, a former House Speaker, gave this advice to President Marcos on Holy Wednesday, March 27 amid the ever-growing tension between the Philippines and China in the West Philippine Sea (WPS). 

“I will advise the President to reflect and meditate this Holy Week. If Jesus Christ himself made sacrifice for the people, maybe it is his turn to do the same by voluntarily resigning from his position and turn over the functions of the presidency to the duly-elected Vice President in the person of VP Sara Duterte,” Alvarez said in a statement. 

The veteran congressman sees this as a way to somehow de-escalate the tension in the WPS. The Duterte family is known to have good ties with China.

For the rest of his statement, Alvarez sounded very much like the elder Duterte in that he would want the current administration to take up a more "pragmatic approach" to dealing with regional power China. 

“I respectfully call for our President Ferdinant Marcos Jr. to stop making decisions and actions that will further escalate the tensions between the Philippines and China. Realistically speaking, we cannot compete with China in terms of military strength. We have allies and defense treaty with the US but are we 100 percent sure they will come to our defense? I don’t think so,” he said.

Alvarez, who was the Speaker during the first two years of former president Duterte's term, called on the Marcos administration to "reassess its strategies in dealing with the Chinese government in the WPS" following the latest water cannon incident perpetrated by the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) to a Philippine resupply mission boat navigating towards Ayungin Shoal on March 23. 

“It would be better and wiser if we focus our efforts for poverty alleviation, and support services to increase production and correspondingly, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). We have to address the primary societal issues of our country before anything else,” he said. 

“We are even having problems with the rising and recurring illegal drugs issue and hunger and yet we are so preoccupied with the ruckus in WPS. Our present government is not setting its sight straight,” claimed the former House leader.  

However, Alvarez clarified that the Philippines should "not surrender even an inch of our territory in the disputed islands in the WPS". 

He said there were just other more important and compelling issues such as poverty alleviation, economic development, livelihood for Filipinos, among others, that the government must first attend to. 

“How can we expect to fight, or even retaliate, if our families are hungry with no food on their plate. No jobs and income to provide for their basic needs. We cannot,” Alvarez said.