Vice Pres. Sara Duterte Reacts On Calls for her To Resign from Office
SARA DUTERTE – The Vice President asserted that she won’t resign from her position citing that 32 million Filipinos voted for her.
Recently, Vice Pres. Duterte was involved in a lot of issues regarding the 2025 budget proposal of her office. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) previously revealed that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) is asking for a P2 billion budget.
According to the DBM, the 2025 budget proposal of the OVP does not include any confidential fund which it was previously criticized for. However, during the Senate and House hearings on the deliberation of the budget proposal, the Vice President got involved in heated arguments.
Vice Pres. Sara Duterte and Senator Risa Hontiveros had a spar during the Senate hearing. The lawmaker expressed an intention to make a motion for the re-allocation of the assistance program fund of the OVP to relevant agencies after citing that it is similar with the assistance programs of the other agencies.
Duterte also tagged Hontiveros questioning about her book as “politicizing”. The Senator asked about the book entitled Isang Kaibigan which is authored by the Vice President herself with a P10 million budget allotted for its distribution.
At the hearings at the House of Representatives, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte also got involved in exchange of heated arguments with some of the House members. The initial deliberation was rescheduled but Duterte was no show at the resumption of the deliberation of the OVP’s budget proposal.
The absence of the Vice President at the deliberation of the budget proposal of her office left several House members disappointed. According to Duterte, she is leaving the decision to the House members as she has already expressed her stand on the issues regarding her office’s budget proposal.
There were rumors that the OVP may be defunded or given a zero budget for 2025 to which the Vice President said that her office can continue to operate even without a budget. There are also calls for the Vice President to resign but she refuses to do so.
Based on a report on GMA News, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte stressed that she will not resign from her position as vice president because it is the people who placed her in the position. The Vice President also stressed that she is working.
“Hindi ako aalis dito dahil inilagay ako ng mga tao dito believing that I will work for the country. That is what we did. We worked,” the Vice President said.
Based on the report, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte further expressed that she is not going to answer to the young lawmakers in the House of Representatives because she has to answer to the 32 million Filipinos who voted for her and not to one or two people.
Recently, the Congress has decided on the 2025 budget of Duterte’s office. There is a huge cut from the budget proposal of P2 billion.