Philippine VP Sara Duterte quits Marcos Cabinet as their alliance crumbles
MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte resigned on Wednesday (Jun 19) from the Cabinet of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and another key post, with tense relations between the two families turning into a public rift in recent months.
Marcos has accepted Duterte's resignation from the posts of education minister and vice chair of an anti-insurgency task force, Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said in a statement, adding that no reasons were given by her for stepping down.
Duterte, who will remain vice president, said in a press conference that her "resignation is not because of weakness but because of true concern for teachers and the youth".
Her resignation affirmed what political observers had predicted all along that the alliance between their families that brought Marcos and her into power in 2022 was bound to collapse because of their political and policy differences.
"It is the break we have all been waiting for," Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, said of the vice president's decision to step down from her cabinet post, suggesting that it would now give her more power to go against Marcos.
SOURCE: CNA
