Marcos: No room for mudslinging, demolition jobs

There will be no room for mudslinging and demolition jobs under the “Bagong Pilipinas” campaign that the administration is advocating, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a YouTube post over the weekend.

The President issued the statement a week after former President Rodrigo Duterte accused him of using illegal drugs and Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte called for his resignation after describing him as a “lazy” Chief Executive (see related story on A1 – Editors).

On YouTube, Mr. Marcos also said the country should come first, and that there will be no “Bagong Pilipinas” if people refuse to change.

Earlier, the government unveiled its “Bagong Pilipinas” brand, which was described as a “call of transformation” that “transcends this administration.”

President Marcos said the campaign is also call for “collective action” toward change.

The launching of the Bagong Pilipinas event last week coincided with a gathering of the Dutertes and their supporters in Davao City, where the former president lambasted his successor.

Reports said Duterte and some of his family members were reportedly upset over talk that several investigators from the International Criminal Court had already entered the Philippines to gather more data about the past administration’s war on drugs.

The debate on confidential funds, which Congress later removed from the proposed budgets of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, last year also contributed to tension within the administration.

The President had brushed off Duterte’s tirades, saying they may be a side effect of his predecessor’s use of fentanyl, a powerful anti-pain drug.

The President said last week that he intends to keep Vice President Sara Duterte as his Education secretary despite the comments from her father and her brother.

Vice President Duterte has meanwhile said she intends to stay at DepEd unless President Marcos says otherwise.

She also said that Mayor Duterte’s comments against the President were “from a place of brotherly love.”

The Vice President said it was in reaction to “despicable treatment that I am receiving from some sectors within the circle of the President.”

The tension within the administration coalition has since increased, with the former president challenging President Marcos to take a drug test and announcing a campaign for Mindanao independence.

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