THE VICE presidency is the nearest post to the Malacañang. With no explicit constitutional authority other than being the president’s spare, its beholder appears to have the least to lose and the most to gain in a drastic restructure.
While vice presidents are elected separately from the nation’s chief executive, they have witnessed major controversies and disagreements, often resulting in their wavering popularity and disfavor from the highest seat of Philippine power.
The vice presidency, in a nutshell
The vice presidency has been present since the Commonwealth’s establishment in 1935, with a brief interruption during the country’s switch to parliamentary government in 1973.
In the Philippine government, the vice president’s role is clear: should anything happen to the president, executive duties immediately fall onto them, either temporarily or for the remainder of the president’s term. The opportunity thus offers the vice president a distinguished standing in national politics, as vice presidents are, by definition, second in terms of precedence.
The vice president, however, does not operate like its vice-position counterparts in local and regional governments.
Unlike vice governors and vice mayors who preside over their legislative councils, the vice president does not preside over the Senate. They have no direct legislative role and inherent executive power under their vice presidency—unless the president appoints them to a cabinet position.
With administrative power dependent on the president, vice presidents are vulnerable to a full revocation of powerful cabinet duties at the discretion of the commander-in-chief—an example being the removal of Sara Duterte from the National Security Council following a highly publicized dispute by Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.
The influence of the vice presidency is therefore strongly dependent on two factors: public support and backing from their presidential superior.
Second-guessing loyalties
In practice, the vice presidency is often associated with controversies resulting from disagreements with the president on key political issues.
Former vice presidents Salvador “Doy” Laurel and Teofisto Guingona Jr. exemplify these political rifts. Both were appointed foreign secretaries during their terms in office but were met with major differences in opinion by their chief executives.
In his resignation letter from September 1987, Laurel called for former President Corazon Aquino to resign from office, citing that her administration “made worse” the prevailing cases of corruption and communism in the country.
Guingona Jr.’s resignation, in contrast, was prematurely announced in June 2002, with the Malacañang accepting a resignation that the vice president denied. In the following month, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo penned a joint statement with Guingona: “Since the President is the chief architect of foreign policy, the Vice President yields.”
Prior to her presidency, Macapagal-Arroyo was second-in-command to former President Joseph Estrada. In October 2000, she resigned as social welfare secretary to distance herself from the President who faced bribery accusations at the time.
This pattern of disagreements extends to contemporary politics but with an added layer of resistance. Former vice presidents Jejomar Binay and Leni Robredo hailed from political parties that staunchly criticized their respective chief executives.
Following his resignation as housing czar in June 2015, Binay grew more critical of then-president Benigno Aquino III, leading him to chair opposition party United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). From an initial position of constructive and “loyal opposition” in 2013, UNA adopted a direct opposition stance against the Aquino administration following Binay’s resignation from his cabinet posts.
Since Robredo assumed the vice presidency in 2016, meanwhile, she critiqued former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug killings, sexual attacks against women, and the decision to bury the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
In her resignation letter from December 2016, Robredo noted that a “directive for [her] to ‘desist from attending all Cabinet meetings’ has effectively made it impossible for [her] to do [her] job.” In 2019, Duterte cited Robredo’s alliance with the opposition as a reason for his distrust towards her.
The vice presidency on trial
This climate of distrust is most recently epitomized by the relationship of Marcos Jr. and Vice President Duterte. On February 5, Duterte became the first Philippine vice president to be impeached, after over two-thirds of the House of Representatives endorsed an impeachment complaint spearheaded by Ilocos Norte First District Representative Sandro Marcos.
The Marcos-Duterte fallout is one of many examples of the highest Filipino officials publicly disagreeing in terms of principles and policy direction. The growing disillusionment between the president and vice president has been unfolding for months—the first major instance of this being Duterte’s resignation as education secretary last July 2024.
For former Akbayan Partylist Representative and Presidential Undersecretary for Political Affairs Tom Villarin, however, this dynamic can still give way to checks and balances and the setting of parameters between the two seats of power. Such is demonstrated in the Philippine Cabinet system, wherein vice presidents receive their posts from the president but often step down from their secondary posts when pressure from disagreements mounts.
Outside of the Cabinet, vice presidents often become either unofficial or official voices of the opposition to the chief executive’s policy directions. In several cases, this active criticism has been met with pushback by the president, leading to public political rifts.
While the current political climate may seem to succumb once again to historical patterns, the question remains as to how the dynamics of the once-united Marcos-Duterte tandem will develop halfway into their sexennial term.
