Vice President Leni Robredo
MANILA, Nov 21 (Mabuhay) – Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday said it will be up to President Rodrigo Duterte if he will ask her and other Cabinet members to step down given their opposition to the surprise burial of the late Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
The “advice” came from former Senator Rene Saguisag, who urged members of the Cabinet who oppose the burial, particularly those from the Left, to step down from their posts after the secretive interment on Friday.
“Kami naman we serve at the pleasure of the President, ‘di ba?” she said. “Kaya… ano naman, na kay Presidente naman ‘yon.”
Robredo—who narrowly beat the late dictator’s son, Bongbong, in the May vice presidential race—staunchly opposes the said burial.
In her sharpest statement yet on the matter, she called the late Marcos “a thief, a murderer, and a dictator.”
She also scored the Marcos family for “deliberately” hiding the burial, and questioned how the interment, with military honors, was carried out in such low-key fashion.
Despite her long-standing opposition, she has repeatedly pointed out that Duterte knows about—and respects—her view on the matter, as well as on other issues.
She also maintained that she has a “very good working relationship” with the President, who she said has been supportive about her work as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).
Other Cabinet members who oppose the burial include Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano.
Taguiwalo, who was a political detainee during Martial Law, maintained her opposition on the matter but said she did not want “to keep rubbing it in” out of deference to the President.
Meanwhile, in a Facebook post, Mariano compared the “rushed” burial to the Marcoses leaving for exile in Hawaii in 1986, and said the family will never escape the “joint indignation and protest” of the people, especially “victims and survivors of Martial Law, like me.”
Other members of the progressive bloc who secured Cabinet seats in the Duterte administration were Joel Maglungsod, undersecretary at the Department of Labor and Employment, and Liza Maza, secretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission. (MNS)