Manila
\nPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte could step down if the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos succeeds in overturning his 2016 vice presidential election defeat, Duterte\u2019s spokesman said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Duterte\u2019s single term ends in June 2022 and he has spoken often recently about quitting before that. At two separate events on Tuesday he said he was \u201cready to go\u201d, expressing frustration about his failure to tackle illicit drugs and corruption in government.<\/p>\n
However, he said was reluctant to do that now because a constitutional succession would mean handing power to Vice President Leni Robredo, whom he said was not up to the job.<\/p>\n
Robredo, who leads the opposition party, was not Duterte\u2019s choice for vice president and was elected separately having narrowly defeated Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the ousted former ruler.<\/p>\n
Marcos, better known as \u201cBongbong\u201d, has challenged the result alleging fraud.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court has ordered a recount, a complex process that got underway in April and could take several years.<\/p>\n
Duterte\u2019s spokesman, Harry Roque, said the president had a \u201creal, genuine wish to step down\u201d if a qualified leader could replace him. Marcos was among those he would prefer, Roque said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manila Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte could step down if the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos succeeds in overturning his 2016 vice presidential election defeat, Duterte\u2019s spokesman said on Thursday. Duterte\u2019s single term ends in June 2022 and he has spoken often recently about quitting before that. At two separate events on Tuesday he said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39248,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39246\/revisions\/39248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}