Malacañang has tagged as "hoax" and "another budol (scam)" the statement of former president Rodrigo Duterte, alleging that President Marcos is veering towards a dictatorship.
In a statement, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said the Palace is treating the accusation as baseless and ridiculous, adding that it came from a "one-man fake-news factory."
"We treat the former president’s baseless and ridiculous statements in the same way that Filipinos are dismissive of them: a tall tale from a man prone to lying and to inventing hoaxes," Bersamin said on Sunday, Feb. 23.
"This hoax is another budol emerging from a one-man fake-news factory," he added.
The former president claimed during an indignation rally in Mandaue City, Cebu, that Marcos "is veering towards a dictatorship" and that he will not step down after his term.
Bersamin denied the allegation, saying the Marcos administration will "stay the course in upholding the Constitution."
"As our actions have consistently demonstrated, we will stay the course in upholding the Constitution, in adhering to the rule of law, and in respecting the rights of the people," the Executive Secretary said.
"We will not backslide into the oppressive ways of the previous administration, when critics were jailed upon trumped-up charges and when kill orders were publicly issued with glee and obeyed blindly," Bersamin added.
"It is the leader of that troubled past who is depicting us as veering toward a system where anyone can be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, as many had been on his mere say-so as a tyrant who did not respect the rights of the people," Palace official went on.