Facebook users have been circulating a quote card attributed to Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III where he supposedly advocated for the resignation of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte. This needs context.
A reader submitted to VERA Files’ Messenger Misinformation Tipline a post dated Oct. 9 quoting Sotto as saying:
“Magreresign ang presidente, nagresign, papaano ngayon ‘yan kung hindi magresign ang bise presidente? Eh, ba’t magreresign ‘yun, eh presidente na siya, nagresign ‘yun presidente eh, ‘di presidente na siya.
(If the president resigns, what will happen if the vice president does not resign? Why would she resign, she’d already be president, if the president has resigned, so she’d already be president).”
The post had a caption that read:
“Ngayong siya ang kasalukuyang Senate President, natural lang gusto ni Sotto na kung mag-resign ang Presidente ay mag-resign din ang Bise Presidente—kasi sino nga ba ang papalit pag nawala ang dalawa
(Now that Sotto is the current Senate president, it is only natural that he’d want the president and the vice president to resign—because who will replace them when they step down)?”
Sotto did not advocate for the resignation of Marcos and Duterte. His statement was in reaction to a proposal for senators, congressmen, the president and the vice president to resign. The original quote card cited Sotto’s statement in its proper context.
Sotto guested in the Oct. 6 episode of journalist Christian Esguerra’s Facts First podcast, where he was asked to comment on a proposal for a snap election amid investigations on the flood control scandal.
Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano suggested in an Oct. 5 FB post that the president, vice president, senators and House members resign en masse and hold a snap election to restore public trust in the government amid investigations into the anomalous flood control projects.
Sotto disagreed, saying Cayetano’s proposal has no legal basis. He said:
“As far as I can recall, there is no legal framework to allow that; there is no legal basis because ‘yung naaalala ko, ‘yung ganyan… sa presidential form of government, wala; merong ganyan sa parliamentary form of government. ‘Pag nagkaroon ng loss of confidence, pwedeng mag-resign at maghalal ng iba. Later on, noong nag-iisip na ako, ano ba kaya ang idea ni Sen. Alan doon? Siguro kung intensyon is para clean slate, ano, how do we do it? Eh, ‘di naglalaro lang ako sa isip ko. Ganito: Magre-resign ang presidente. Nag-resign. Papaano ngayon ‘yan kung hindi mag-resign ang bise presidente? Eh, ba’t magre-resign ‘yun, presidente na siya. Nag-resign ‘yung presidente, eh, ‘di presidente na siya.
(As far as I can recall, there is no legal framework to allow that; there is no legal basis because what I recall, that kind of setup… is absent in a presidential form of government, but it’s allowed in a parliamentary form of government. When there is a loss of confidence, [the prime minister] can resign and a new one can be elected. Later on, when I thought about it, what idea did Sen. Alan have? Perhaps the intention was to have a clean slate, but how do we do it? So I played around with the idea. It could be like this: The president resigns. What happens now if the vice president does not resign? Why would she resign, she’d already be president? The president resigned, so she’d already be president.)”
The quote card was uploaded by the FB page Masang Pilipino on Oct. 9, reporting Sotto’s reasons for disagreeing with Cayetano’s proposition for a mass resignation and snap election. The image in the graphic is from an Oct. 6 press conference Sotto held at the Senate offices in Pasay City.
The quote card circulated with erroneous context amid rumors that Sotto would be ousted as Senate President. Cayetano countered this in an Oct. 8 briefing, where he said there was no active effort among senators to have Sotto replaced.
As of Oct. 13, re-posts of the quote card have garnered over 42,500 reactions, 10,900 comments and 2,000 shares.
